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
EVGA's GeForce GTX 260 Core 216 Superclocked
In North America there are only two vendors launching a Core 216 today: EVGA and BFG. We're not sure what this will mean for street pricing and availability but it is what it is.
EVGA sent us one of their Core 216 cards, the GeForce GTX 260 Core 216 Superclocked. As the name implies, the Superclocked version will ship overclocked:
| GeForce GTX 260 Core 216 (stock) | EVGA GeForce GTX 260 Core 216 Superclocked | |
| Core Clock | 576MHz | 626MHz |
| Shader Clock | 1242MHz | 1350MHz |
| Memory Clock | 999MHz | 1053MHz |
| Price Point | $279 | $299 |
The factory overclocked nature of the card means that EVGA will charge a bit more for it, $299 to be specific. For this comparison we've tested the Core 216 at its stock clock speed, but the chart below shows the sort of performance advantage EVGA's overclock gives it:
We're looking at a 7% increase in performance here for an extra $20. Chances are that you'll be able to pull off something close to this overclock on your own so we'd recommend sticking with a stock card especially given how close the Core 216 vs. 4870 is, as you'll soon see.
The Test
| Test Setup | |
| CPU | Intel Core 2 Extreme QX9770 @ 3.20GHz |
| Motherboard | EVGA nForce 790i SLI |
| Video Cards | ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2 ATI Radeon HD 4870 NVIDIA GeForce GTX 280 NVIDIA GeForce GTX 260 SLI NVIDIA GeForce GTX 260 NVIDIA GeForce GTX 260 Core 216 |
| Video Drivers | Catalyst 8.7 ForceWare 177.34 |
| Hard Drive | Seagate 7200.9 120GB 8MB 7200RPM |
| RAM | 4 x 1GB Corsair DDR3-1333 7-7-7-20 |
| Operating System | Windows Vista Ultimate 64-bit SP1 |
| PSU | PC Power & Cooling Turbo Cool 1200W |
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aguilpa1 - Tuesday, September 16, 2008 - link
I'm still holding on to my dual 8800GTX's. I am still surprised how competitive they are against all but the uber high end 280SLI's or 4way Xfire setups. At my native resolution of 1920x1080, they still tear everything up.PSMR - Tuesday, September 16, 2008 - link
What about system specs. or drivers that were used?Clauzii - Tuesday, September 16, 2008 - link
It's all on page 2 :)PSMR - Wednesday, September 17, 2008 - link
Ha, that was added after my comment. Wow, good reporting anandtech.BPB - Tuesday, September 16, 2008 - link
I would have liked to seen 4850 in Crossfire since I paid well under $300 for my 2 on sale, and $300 seems to be the price point this article goes after.