Official GeForce GTX 280 and GTX 260 reviews thread!

[Bman212121]

Very well said and Crysis IMO is a complete failure. I would not be surprised if that game doesnt ever perform the way that it should, EA is not even gonna bother with anymore patches because they know its a waste of time even though they will never admit to it.

I wouldn't say that Crysis is a complete failure at all. It is by far one of the best looking games on the market right now. When they designed the game they were likely able to exploit a few features on the 8 series cards that allowed them to get some extra performance. A new card came out and maybe some of those tweaks no longer work due to changes, so someone needs to figure out what is holding the card back and get it fully optimized.

The biggest hump that this game had is it doesn't run well on most hardware that was available on launch. To me it is a double edged sword. They are touting the best graphics but in order to run the game smoothly you can't turn them up which kind of defeated the purpose. This card gets its performance much closer but it wouldn't make much sense for Nvidia to design a card around 1 game.

[ASUSEN7900GTX]

wonder what the GTX280 can do in Crysis with 8xAA/8XAF @1680x1050

or any other game for that matter

[pizzaguy]

In all honesty a lot of people just need to get their noses out of the Crysis benchmarks and look at the others because its impossible to say that the GTX280 is not impressive considering its on launch drivers and competing against cards that are on very mature drivers.

Crysis is a failure and EA has given up on it so you may as well just get over it and move along as its not the only game out there to play anyway.

You cant ignore the other benches out there and you certainly cannot deny that this isnt an impressive leap considering the early state of drivers.


http://firingsquad.com/hardware/nvidia_geforce_gtx_280_260_performance/images/pf800.gif



http://firingsquad.com/hardware/nvidia_geforce_gtx_280_260_performance/images/cod2800.gif


http://firingsquad.com/hardware/nvidia_geforce_gtx_280_260_performance/images/cod41280.gif



http://firingsquad.com/hardware/nvidia_geforce_gtx_280_260_performance/images/bio1600.gif



And whats all this talk about the GX2 anway? because unless we are talking about Crysis it looks to me that this single GPU has no problem with the GX2 and this is on early drivers.

After a few price drops and some revised drivers this will be the card to beat!

[pizzaguy]

I wouldn't say that Crysis is a complete failure at all. It is by far one of the best looking games on the market right now.

Dont take this as an insult but are graphics all that really matter to you? if so then Crysis is your game.......... yeah it looks good but the game is crap and even EA knows it. I need more than just something pretty to look at.

[CaptNKILL]

I wouldn't say that Crysis is a complete failure at all. It is by far one of the best looking games on the market right now. When they designed the game they were likely able to exploit a few features on the 8 series cards that allowed them to get some extra performance. A new card came out and maybe some of those tweaks no longer work due to changes, so someone needs to figure out what is holding the card back and get it fully optimized.

The biggest hump that this game had is it doesn't run well on most hardware that was available on launch. To me it is a double edged sword. They are touting the best graphics but in order to run the game smoothly you can't turn them up which kind of defeated the purpose. This card gets its performance much closer but it wouldn't make much sense for Nvidia to design a card around 1 game.

I thought Crysis was fantastic (up till the carrier level at the end... that sucked...) and the graphics and art design were completely mind blowing. If any game deserves the graphics crown, its Crysis.

I look forward to playing it again every time I upgrade. It looked amazing at tweaked high settings at 1280x960 with no AA, and ran ok most of the time. At higher resolutions with full details and smoother framerates it can only be better. :)

[pizzaguy]

wonder what the GTX280 can do in Crysis with 8xAA/8XAF @1680x1050

or any other game for that matter



Umm.......earth to Asusen earth to Asusen.

[Ara23]

Looks OK. Though I won't be buying one, my GTS is good for a little while more :D

[pizzaguy]

If any game deserves the graphics crown, its Crysis.




Yep and thats all that it deserves as it failed miserably at every other important aspect that makes a great game. From the bugs and glitches early on to the expressionless faces when you grabbed a soldier around the neck and the horrible AI and please dont tell me that you think this game had great AI because I have seen far far better in really old games such as FEAR.

I like pretty graphics to guys but graphics alone do not make a great game.


Anyway thats just my opinion, if you like Crysis then great. I did not mean to derail this thread so lets get back on topic.

[Bman212121]

Another thing worth noting is that most of these benchmarks done at really high resolutions with AA enabled are most likely making the 512Mb cards run out of memory, which will lower average framerates quite a bit. If you look at benchmarks that list the 8800GTX and Ultra along with the 512Mb cards, the GTX and Ultra tend to perform much closer to the 280.

http://www.tbreak.com/reviews/article.php?cat=grfx&id=614&pagenumber=11

The 280 is 32% faster than the 9800GTX and only 11% faster than the 8800GTX at 1920x1200 in STALKER.

Just something I noticed. :)

BTW, has anyone seen any Mass Effect benchmarks? It runs fine for me at 1600x1200 with no AA, but another 20fps average and 4xAA wouldn't hurt. :p

That's what makes this so hairy. :afro:

Once we see more games that can cross the 768MB border we'll see the same thing happening to the 8800GTX.

[pizzaguy]

That's what makes this so hairy. :afro:

Once we see more games that can cross the 768MB border we'll see the same thing happening to the 8800GTX.


Note the benches above that I posted. The GTX 280 is slaughtering the 8800 series in most games and its not even at a really high enough resolution that it should be to much for a 512mb card.

[CaptNKILL]

Wow, this is probably the coolest benchmark chart design I've ever seen:

http://www.computerbase.de/artikel/hardware/grafikkarten/2008/test_nvidia_geforce_gtx_280_sli/20/#abschnitt_unreal_tournament_3

Put your cursor over the chart and it changes to percentages based on the card you are pointed at. More sites should do this. :thumbsup:

I still haven't seen any Mass Effect benchmarks though, surprisingly. I know this stuff takes time and the game has only been out for 2 weeks, but its a pretty high profile title. I figured that someone would have done it before they put out their preview.

[pizzaguy]

I still haven't seen any Mass Effect benchmarks though, surprisingly. I know this stuff takes time and the game has only been out for 2 weeks, but its a pretty high profile title. I figured that someone would have done it before they put out their preview.

I would also like to see some Mass Effect benchmarks but it runs great maxed out on my overclocked 8800GT and E6300@3.4ghz along with 4gb's ram.

I can even run 4XAA forced in the NV CP and am still getting smooth FPS. 30 seems to be the minimum with 4XAA enabled but most of the time its around 45+FPS.


Coming from the Xbox 360 version this is a very nice step up as the texture pop in is gone as well as the hitching plus the game runs so much smoother while looking a bit better.

[mullet]

280GTX za straty

[Bman212121]

Note the benches above that I posted. The GTX 280 is slaughtering the 8800 series in most games and its not even at a really high enough resolution that it should be to much for a 512mb card.

The GTX 280 is twice the card as the 8800GTX in terms of raw power. I was referring to the fact that once the 768MB ram barrier is crossed the 8800GTX will fall off really quickly like the 9800GTX already does because of the framebuffer. In WiC is basically halves the performance of the card because it has to start swapping texture memory.

Normal performance
http://www.pcper.com/images/reviews/577/gtx280/wic-1920-bar.jpg

Framebuffer limitation
http://www.pcper.com/images/reviews/577/gtx280/wic-2560-bar.jpg

[CaptNKILL]

I would also like to see some Mass Effect benchmarks but it runs great maxed out on my overclocked 8800GT and E6300@3.4ghz along with 4gb's ram.

I can even run 4XAA forced in the NV CP and am still getting good FPS. 30 seems to be the minimum with 4XAA enabled but most of the time its around 45+FPS.

I tried 4xAA at 1600x1200 on my system but it just drops too much in places with lots of characters or action. Anything under 40fps during a fire fight makes me cranky. :p

[MikeC]

wonder what the GTX280 can do in Crysis with 8xAA/8XAF @1680x1050

or any other game for that matter

Glad you asked. How about at 16xQ AA :)

http://www.nvnews.net/reviews/geforce_gtx_280/images/1680_1050_16xq_aa.png

[pizzaguy]

I tried 4xAA at 1600x1200 on my system but it just drops too much in places with lots of characters or action. Anything under 40fps during a fire fight makes me cranky. :p

Yeah my min of 30 FPS happens in the citidal when looking across with a ton of characters on the screen, any other time my FPS are pretty darn good even in firefights.

I have heard that this game scales really really well on a Quad core CPU (UE3 Engine) so I would love to see if my FPS would be a bit higher in the CPU limited areas with lots of characters and AI on the screen when I go to Quad core.

Capt what OS are you using because judging by your specs you should be getting the same perf or better than me. I am on Vista 64 myself.

[mullet]

Glad you asked. How about at 16xQ AA :)

http://www.nvnews.net/reviews/geforce_gtx_280/images/1680_1050_16xq_aa.png

Thanks Mike, not many people do 1680x1050. I wish they did.

[CaptNKILL]

Yeah my min of 30 FPS happens in the citidal when looking across with a ton of characters on the screen, any other time my FPS are pretty darn good even in firefights.

I have heard that this game scales really really well on a Quad core CPU (UE3 Engine) so I would love to see if my FPS would be a bit higher in the CPU limited areas with lots of characters and AI on the screen when I go to Quad core.

Capt what OS are you using because judging by your specs you should be getting the same perf or better than me. I am on Vista 64 myself.

I'm using Vista x64.

Mass Effect runs fine for me, I just always want smoother framerates. :p

Once you get used to gaming at 85fps solid with vsync and triple buffering (most Source engine games run that fast at 2048x1536), its hard to settle for less than half of that, even for a few seconds. :lol:

Some people are Anti-Aliasing nazis... but I'm a framerate nazi. I rarely use AA because it always causes framerate drops at the worst times.

[MikeC]

Some people are Anti-Aliasing nazis... but I'm a framerate nazi.Hey, I resemble that remark! Actually, back in the day we were playing software accelerated Quake in a window that was the size of a postage stamp! Then GLQuake came along...

[pizzaguy]

I'm using Vista x64.

Mass Effect runs fine for me, I just always want smoother framerates. :p

Once you get used to gaming at 85fps solid with vsync and triple buffering (most Source engine games run that fast at 2048x1536), its hard to settle for less than half of that, even for a few seconds. :lol:

Some people are Anti-Aliasing nazis... but I'm a framerate nazi. I rarely use AA because it always causes framerate drops at the worst times.

Yeah I guess everyone has a different level of tolerance for frame rates but I do find most of my games to be perfectly smooth and playable with 4XAA. Really old games like BF2 however gets 16QXAA and Multisampling Transparency added since my FPS never dips under 60 at those settings.

For me online shooters at 60+ is a must and with single player games 45average 60max and 30min is fine.

[CaptNKILL]

Yeah I guess everyone has a different level of tolerance for frame rates but I do find most of my games to be perfectly smooth and playable with 4XAA. Really old games like BF2 however gets 16QXAA and Multisampling Transparency added since my FPS never dips under 60 at those settings.

For me online shooters at 60+ is a must and with single player games 45average 60max and 30min is fine.

What resolution do you play at normally?

[evox]

Glad you asked. How about at 16xQ AA :)

http://www.nvnews.net/reviews/geforce_gtx_280/images/1680_1050_16xq_aa.png

IMPRESSIVE. (nana2)

[walterman]

3x times more shading power + 45% higher bandwidth = Close to 3x times faster in some games, but around a 45% faster in the rest. :)

[ChrisRay]

Also chrisRay mention that with SLI they are no more hitches and micro stuttering with GTXes :)

I didnt say that. I think your confusing what I said about Crysis due to the memory stutter. Of your SLI or multi GPU. With AFR there will always be subjective inter-frame delay microstutters that occur randomly. Dependent on how often and the size of the MS delay can vary. With Crysis 9800GX2 was severely limited by its framebuffer size.

Chris