BFG GeForce GTX 280 tested and rated

Final thoughts

GeForce GTX 280 is the new range-topping GPU from NVIDIA, released some 18 months after GeForce 8800 GTX made a huge impression and changed the way we think of graphics-cards forever.

Let's break down final thoughts into the constituent parts.

The architecture

The new series, comprising initially of the GeForce GTX 280 and GTX 260, can be considered as an incremental upgrade on what we've seen before. There's more shading, texturing, and memory bandwidth than we've ever seen before from a single-GPU design, which is nice.

The architecture's been cleaned up and leverages the full worth of the epoch-defining G80. It's wider, faster and a little cleverer, yes, but it's absolutely not the leap forward that we were expecting.

Supporting Hybrid Power, idle and low load power-efficiency have been increased over previous generations', which, again, is nice and green, but readers contemplating these GPUs will be concerned with balls-out power.

NVIDIA will pare-down the high-end SKUs and introduce cheaper variants at later dates, but they won't look and perform too differently to the incumbent 9-series, from what we can tell.

We'll hear lots more about how the GTX 200-series is a perfect fit for non-gaming tasks, via CUDA, yet your GeForce 8800 GT can do all GTX 280 can (bar double-precision accuracy), albeit a little slower.

Overall, then, it's more of the same, and that's something of a disappointment.

The performance

Bigger numbers means higher benchmarking performance than any single-GPU that's crossed our path, especially as resolution and image-quality settings are increased.

Trouble is, the hotch-potch GeForce 9800 GX2 gives as good as it gets.

NVIDIA may argue that GTX 280 doesn't suffer from SLI's foibles and has better multi-monitor support, and that's true. But didn't you, dear reader, expect more?

Yes, you can take out a mortgage, buy three of these puppies, and have the fastest PC-based gaming subsystem this side of anywhere. Do you really want to spend £1,350 on graphics cards?

The green team, too, has nowhere to go now with a single-GPU setup; this is it. We'll see overclocked versions in due course; they'll add a few per cent on top. GTXs will need to be SLI'd - and all the furniture that brings with it - to extract meaningful gains in performance over and above what we've seen.

The value perspective

Going down the big-chip route is an intrinsically expensive business. Financially speaking, 1.4bn transistors on a 65nm process cannot be cheap to manufacture, and that cost is passed on to the consumer.

Priced at around £450 on launch day, the GTX 280 is simply too expensive in an age where the rival, ATI, is clearly focussed on providing performance in the sub-£250 category.

It hurts that the £150 cheaper GeForce 9800 GX2 is able to performance-compete with it in our benchmarked titles, leading to the inference that SLI'd GeForce 9800 GTX, priced at around £370 for the pair, will do the same.

Etailer pricing needs to drop to £350, in a hurry, for GTX 280 to be a viable solution at the high-end, we feel.

ATI's RV770 and R700 are about to hit the retail space soon, and it's only then that the true GPU picture of 2008 will emerge, though.

The bottom line

GeForce GTX 280 easily takes the mantle of fastest single-GPU graphics-card, with performance derived from making 18-month-old G80 that much bigger and better.

But in getting ultimate performance, NVIDIA's gone down the big-chip route. As a result, we can't envisage that yields will be particularly good in the short-term, possibly leading to scaling issues if ATI's R700 is as good as it's reckoned to be.

The fundamental problem that's faced NVIDIA is that G80 was so damn good; the bar was raised astronomically high and kept there with a succession of G80 derivatives.

We wanted another G80-type jump for this new generation, and whilst GTX 280 is undeniably blazingly fast, it's simply not that.

Fast, but no cigar (ahem, G80).

BFG's slightly overclocked card lives and dies by what's written above, naturally.

We'll investigate overclocking performance and take a look at three-way SLI later on this week, so stay tuned.

HEXUS Awards

Well, it is pretty fast, right?

BFG GeForce GTX 280 OC

HEXUS Where2Buy

The in-stock card can be purchased for £469 here

HEXUS Right2Reply

HEXUS invites manufacturers to comment on our review's findings. If any BFG or NVIDIA's representatives wish to do so, their HEXUS Right2Reply will be written here, verbatim.