The performance of the EVGA GeForce GTX 260 Core 216 Superclocked was compared to a reference graphics card that uses NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 280. The GeForce GTX 280 is currently NVIDIA's most powerful GPU.

The Competition - NVIDIA GeForce GTX 280

Here is a photograph of the EVGA GeForce GTX 260 Core 216 Superclocked installed in the test system.

Graphics Card Installed

Note that the GeForce GTX 260 requires two 6-pin PCI-Express power connectors. NVIDIA recommends power connectors that are native to the power supply, although EVGA includes a couple of 6-pin adapters as accessories.

External Power Connectors

No major upgrades have been made to my test system, which has been in use for the past 6 months.

Hardware and Operating System

• Intel Core 2 Duo E8500 - 3.0GHz Wolfdale Core - 6MB L2 Cache - 1333MHz FSB
• BFG nForce 680i SLI Motherboard
• 4GB Corsair XMS PC8500 DDR2 SDRAM 5-5-5-18-2T @ 400MHz
• Creative Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS
• Thermaltake ToughPower 1200W Power Supply
• Dell 3007WFP LCD Monitor
• Windows XP Professional with Service Pack 3 / DirectX 9.0c
• Windows Vista 64-bit with Service Pack 1 / DirectX 10

Graphics Cards, Drivers, and Driver Settings

• EVGA GeForce GTX 260 Core 216 Superclocked Edition - 626MHz Core / 1350MHz Shader / 1053MHz Memory (2106MHz Effective)
• NVIDIA GeForce GTX 280 - 602MHz Core / 1296MHz Shader / 1107MHz Memory (2214MHz Effective)
• ForceWare Beta 177.92
• 32-Bit Color
• Vsync Disabled
• 60Hz Refresh Rate
• High Quality Texture Filtering
• Gamma Correct Antialiasing

Test Applications

• Call of Duty 4 - Custom Timedemo
• Crysis - Demo Island and Gameplay
• Oblivion - Gameplay
• S.T.A.L.K.E.R. - Custom Timedemo and Gameplay
• Unreal Tournament 3 - Custom Timedemo and Gameplay

Notes

• Antialiasing was set to "Override any application setting" in the driver for Oblivion and S.T.A.L.K.E.R.
• Anisotropic filtering was forced to 8x in the driver for Oblivion.

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