NVIDIA GeForce GTX 260 Core 216: Competition for the 4870
by Anand Lal Shimpi & Derek Wilson on September 16, 2008 12:00 AM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
Final Words
We tested seven games. AMD and NVIDIA split it, each winning three of them and virtually tied in the seventh. I hate to disappoint those looking for a one sided fight here, but this one is a wash. NVIDIA would want to point out that CUDA and PhysX are significant advantages that would put the Core 216 over the top but honestly there's no compelling application for either (much like the arguments for Havok and DirectX 10.1 from the AMD camp).
Our recommendation here is to first see if either card happens to run a game you care about better than the other, but if not then just buy whatever is cheaper. Today that would be the Radeon HD 4870, currently it's very tough to find stock-clocked Core 216s and those are priced above $300; even if we could find availability at $279, the 4870 is still cheaper. Until the price comes down, the Radeon HD 4870 still remains our pick at the $250 - $300 pricepoint. While NVIDIA has closed the performance gap, the part they used still maintains a price gap.
NVIDIA says they will have availability on the silicon but that only two manufacturers are going to have parts out of the gate on this, which does give us pause. If the GTX 260 had been originally released with 9 TPCs (216 SPs), then it would have been a better competitor to the Radeon HD 4870 and we wouldn't need this slight tweak of a readjusted part. It doesn't generally deliver near it's 12.5% maximum theoretical performance improvement, and really seems like its only a thinly attempt to win at a couple more benchmarks than usual.
Yes it does that, and yes the consumer does benefit even if the benefit is ever so slight. But what none of us benefit from is an over abundance of parts released at nearly the same price point with nearly the same name and nearly the same specs. NVIDIA really needs to stop this trend. ATI tried this a few generations ago, but thankfully (at least since the AMD merger) they seem to have cleaned up their act a bit. There is no reason to have a continuum of hardware with increasingly complex naming as the gaps between parts are filled in.
What we need is less confusion in the market place and a focus on fairly pricing competitive hardware. Trying to get around supply and demand by cluttering up the market with different parts that have similar names and slightly different pricing isn't a consumer friendly way to go.
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Mr Roboto - Tuesday, September 16, 2008 - link
No, no, that's not confusing enough. The GTX260 Core 216 fits perfectly with the 8600GT\GTS, 8800GTS 640\512\320, 9600GT\GSO and the 9800GTX+. Can't wait to hear the naming scheme for the 55nm GTX280's.Boushh - Wednesday, September 17, 2008 - link
How about the GTX260 55nm Core 216 :)yyrkoon - Thursday, September 18, 2008 - link
How about . . . " a failed GTX 280 " core ; )SiliconDoc - Sunday, October 5, 2008 - link
Gosh, sorry I have to vent here. lol -I know you were being a wise guy - so take it with a grain of salt.
ou don't really believe that excuse, do you ? I mean the corpo planners have you eating their goat cheese like a baby.
" Oh lookie here, the exact parts we need failed , failed again, wow, just a shaders region and one mem spew bank, man we get lucky a lot ! Ok, just cut that line on the corecap, and stamp it a 260 !"
.
( I mean really...).
Yes, of course they can grade bin somethnig like an E8400 / E3110 for voltage hence decency, but I've never believed they just whack out a 280 to make it a 260, or the other endless derivations of the basic deal...
They control multipliers IN MANUFACTURE, fine. If they stamp on a different name, fine.
But having this " lucky failed chip " taken to every extreme - I simply don't believe it.
280.260 "same core" - yeah, fine, they PLAN on the 260 core reductions, then produce them as such.
Same as with all their other crap...
We've found MANY times before - their locked chips - when unlocked did just as well as the higher versions, sometimes even better.
Anyway.
crimson117 - Tuesday, September 16, 2008 - link
or GTX 280 GSOsilversound - Tuesday, September 16, 2008 - link
Anandtech just keep getting better, tomshardware just plain sucks & bias now.Any reviews on the new 4850X2?
Anand Lal Shimpi - Tuesday, September 16, 2008 - link
We're still waiting on review samples of the 4850X2 as well as the new 1GB RV770 cards. As soon as we get some in for review we'll get on them :)-A
mmntech - Tuesday, September 16, 2008 - link
When has Tom's ever not been biased? They used to be vary pro-Intel, pro-ATI if I remember correctly.I'm impressed with nVidia's numbers since I had figured they had abandoned the mid-range market again when the release of the GTX series, which were double the price of what ATI was offering. Good frame rates, fair price, and lower power consumption than the HD 4870. Not a bad buy. I wish I had kept with nVidia rather than getting an HD3850 earlier this year. While it's a good card, it has driver trouble with older games like KotOR (low frame rates, missing effects) and ATI's Linux compatibility sucks.
Gannon - Wednesday, September 17, 2008 - link
Toms was ok back in the day, and sometimes for CPU/VGA charts, but for most everything else they were just not very good. They are a dumbed down version of anandtech for the masses.JarredWalton - Tuesday, September 16, 2008 - link
I only wish I could run SLI on an X38 chipset (without the silly nForce 100/200 bridge). Until that happens, I'll use ATI hardware for this generation. Hopefully with the Nehalem stuff, I can pick up an X58 board with support for both GPU platforms. Though I have to say, my dual 3870 cards are starting to look awfully sad. :(