The performance of the EVGA GeForce GTX 280 FTW Edition was compared to their GeForce 8800 GTX ACS³ Edition, which debuted in November of 2006.

The Competition - EVGA GeForce 8800 GTX ACS3 Edition

Although the GeForce 9800 GX2 exceeds the performance of the GeForce 8800 GTX, it happens to be a dual-chip GPU and contains less memory and a narrower memory bus than the GeForce 8800 GTX. However, benchmark results we received from the GeForce GTX 280, met or exceeded the performance of the GeForce 9800 GX2 when it was reviewed back in March with the same system.

EVGA GeForce GTX 280 Installed

Note that the GeForce GTX 280 requires an 8-pin and a 6-pin PCI-Express power connector. NVIDIA recommends power connectors that are native to the power supply, although EVGA did include a single (2) 6-pin to (1) 8-pin adapter. However, a warning is provided that states "the provided 8-pin adapter is for temporary use only and should not be used as a long term solution."

8-Pin PCI-Express Connector

Hardware and Operating System

• Intel Core 2 Duo E6850 - 3.0GHz Conroe Core - 4MB 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
• Tagan TG1100-U96 Turbojet Power Supply
• Dell 3007WFP LCD Monitor
• Windows XP Professional with Service Pack 2 / DirectX 9.0c

Graphics Cards, Drivers, and Driver Settings

• EVGA GeForce GTS 280 FTW Edition - 670MHz Core / 1458MHz Shader / 1215MHz Memory (2430MHz Effective)
• EVGA GeForce 8800 GTX ACS³ Edition - 576MHz Core / 1350MHz Shader / 900MHz Memory (1800MHz Effective)
• ForceWare Beta 177.34 - GeForce GTX 280
• ForceWare WQHL 175.16 - GeForce 8800 GTX
• 32-Bit Color
• Vsync Disabled
• 60Hz Refresh Rate
• High Quality Texture Filtering
• Gamma Correct Antialiasing

Test Applications

• BioShock
• Call of Duty 4
• Crysis
• Dark Messiah
• F.E.A.R.
• Lost Planet
• Oblivion
• Quake 4
• The Witcher
• STALKER
• Unreal Tournament 3
• World in Conflict Demo

Notes

• Antialiasing was set to "Override any application setting" in the driver for BioShock, Oblivion and Unreal Tournament 3.
• Anisotropic filtering was set to 8x in the driver for Oblivion.

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