# Point of View GeForce GTX 280 Assassin's Creed Edition



## W1zzard (Jun 12, 2008)

NVIDIA's new GTX 280 graphics cards have just been released. Point of View's GeForce GTX 280 is an implementation of the NVIDIA reference design. The GTX 280 offers amazing performance improvements and can even beat the GeForce 9800 GX2. But performance comes at a cost, at $649 you need a fat wallet to be able to afford this card.

*Show full review*


----------



## DaMulta (Jun 16, 2008)

I can't wait to see what these do in SLi, because it seems to be one hell of a card.


----------



## newtekie1 (Jun 16, 2008)

These cards are beasts.  Beating the 9800GX2 with a single GPU is no simple feat, I have to give nVidia credit for that.  But the price take is insane.  I only hope this drops the price on the older cards.


----------



## Neohazard (Jun 16, 2008)

Too expensive for a new technology in 3 months this price goes down


----------



## Easy Rhino (Jun 16, 2008)

id like to see the stats in dx10 mode.


----------



## Neohazard (Jun 16, 2008)

This PEG Card have GeForce PhysX???????????????????????????????? this is true?????????????????


----------



## Megasty (Jun 16, 2008)

Neohazard said:


> This PEG Card have GeForce PhysX???????????????????????????????? this is true?????????????????



Its called CUDA...& yeah.


----------



## Neohazard (Jun 16, 2008)

Wowwwww man, we are saw the old Voodoo cards coming back to rox all games with this tech anyone here remembers Voodoo??????? with 3dFX


----------



## AnnCore (Jun 16, 2008)

*Manly cards!*

I am glad I read every little bit of W1zzard's review cuz his "$2000 e-penis" remark had me lol-ing big time and I think that's exactly what this card (3 of em in Tri-SLI) is all about at that price tag (for most of us anyways).


----------



## btarunr (Jun 16, 2008)

I'm liking the NV cooler designs a lot off late.

I didn't expect it to be that expensive. I thought it was $599 or something. $650 card, hooray. 

If it's 15% faster than HD3870 X2 while being 70% more expensive, I already know which card to opt for....or rather which one to avoid.


----------



## ryboto (Jun 16, 2008)

Easy Rhino said:


> id like to see the stats in dx10 mode.



Me too, just about every other review shows different results with DX10 vs DX9.  Most reviews don't have the GX2 losing so badly to the 280 either.


----------



## btarunr (Jun 16, 2008)

Megasty said:


> Its called CUDA...& yeah.



CUDA...is Compute Unified Device Architecture. It's a computing architecture, like ARM, SPARC, PPC, or even x86 for that matter, just that it's not (yet) a full-fledged machine architecture. You can code applications for CUDA ranging from F@H to the PhysX process, prettymuch anything that can exploit a CUDA supportive GPU and make use of those 100's of GFLOPs (GeForce 8 series and upwards). How do you make the most out of NVidia's shaders, they being 'fully programmable'? By coding applications based on that architecture. Just as you can create Itanium apps on a x86 machine by using the right IDE, you can code CUDA apps. They basically remade PhysX for GeForce by making it a CUDA app. So the software basically makes the shaders do physics calculations which the PhysX PPU used to do.


----------



## mdm-adph (Jun 16, 2008)

> Some people might even get three of them just to be number one in the benchmark competitions again. Even if you won't make number one you can still say you have a $2000 e-penis.



Thanks for being brave enough to say that in the final review! 

1.4 billion transistors -- damn.  That's a mean piece of technology.  And it's good to see that nvidia's finally made something that will completely unseat the 8800 GTX, but damn does it eat up the watts!


----------



## DanishDevil (Jun 16, 2008)

Page...3?



> The GDDR3 chips are made by Hynix and have the model number H5RS5223CFR-N2C. Hynix rates those chips at 1200 MHz (= 0.83 ns cycle time). This is the *fasted *GDDR3 memory variant available from Hynix.



Should be fast_est_, right?

And I'd also love to comment on the fact that the NVIO chip looks JUST like an ATi GPU LMAO.


----------



## freaksavior (Jun 16, 2008)

add something to show how big the gpu proc is.

like a pringle. i bet the die is bigger than a pringle


----------



## xu^ (Jun 16, 2008)

looks great performance wise but i checked out some UK prices ,the lower model goes for around £300+ while some of the top models go for almost £500 !!

EG:EVGA GeForce GTX 280 1024MB GDDR3 TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail
£481.74 inc VAT

and thats not even an OC version

i dont care how fast it is ,no way im paying almost £500/$900+

if these prices dont drop pretty quickly i cant see them selling to many.


----------



## R_1 (Jun 16, 2008)

xubidoo said:


> ... i checked out some UK prices ,the lower model goes for around £300+ while some of the top models go for almost £500 !!
> and thats not even an OC version ...


This is the price for living in Europe man!


----------



## WarEagleAU (Jun 16, 2008)

Impressive scores and alot different than the links to Toms Hardware and Anandtech show. I like the cooling solution, quietness and performance. Im not a fan of connecting the sound to on board or Soundcard. ATI builds their own DSP (Im assuming its a DSP) into their card. I see it stacking up well to the 9800GX2 and barely losing in a couple of benchmarks to it. Biggest thing is, at full high settings, it runs Crysis over 30 FPS. Amazing. Price is waaay too high though. Im so interested in seeing ATIs HD4870 now.

I havent read the Zotac review but its been tops in everything on the benches. Im guessing its OC;d or something. Also, Ive noticed on every review, W1zz has 100% in the price perf part for the card being reviewed while others are less or more.


----------



## trt740 (Jun 16, 2008)

Flat out stupid price I cannot believe how dumb this card is at this price unless NV just wanted to be king of the hill and only made these to sell their lower cards. Like the the 9800gtx. It would have made better sense to make a 8800gtx2 or 9600gtx2 but what the heck is this price. Why would you buy this when you can buy a 9800gx2 for as low as 400.00 and only lose a few frames. They couldn't come with anything better than this.


----------



## GSG-9 (Jun 16, 2008)

If I were to go out to get a card right now I would get a 9800 GX2 and hope I could clock it up enough to get the 5-15 frames it lost to the 280. I could not beat a 280 overclocked but I would have an extra $280 to comfort me about that.


----------



## Mussels (Jun 17, 2008)

my thoughts:

cooler and die look as big as the 8800GTX. pity that, smaller is better in those cases.

Onboard SPDIF connector is good - it was optional on G92 cards, and very frustrating if you wanted it and didnt get it (my card has them, but they arent connected to anything)

Rubber cap for SLI connectors is nice. Helps the looks, protects the pins.

removing the cooler appears to be a nightmare...

Speed seems good. close to the 9800GX2, but not quite there. Basically, its the fastest single GPU card out right now. (soon to be challenged by ATI)

power usage: great at idle, average at load. Great idle is better, because you wont chew a ton of power sitting in 2D desktop use.

temps/noise: seems hot/oisy to me. 3rd party coolers can fix that.

performance per watt is great... performance per dollar is not. the cards definately need a price drop.


"ATI tools succesor, work in progress" - Hellllloooooooo


----------



## Wile E (Jun 17, 2008)

I'm also quite upset they went back to using an IHS on the core.


----------



## mdm-adph (Jun 17, 2008)

Wile E said:


> I'm also quite upset they went back to using an IHS on the core.



You know, it's something about that -- as well as the _extremely_ hard to open case -- that says to me that nVidia REALLY doesn't want you doing custom things to this card.  I mean, I know a lot of companies are like that, but it's really evident with this card.


----------



## W1zzard (Jun 18, 2008)

fixed the "fasted"


----------



## newconroer (Jun 18, 2008)

Shame they didn't include Age of Conan. I have fortunatley seen a review out there that does use AOC along with Crysis and the other common demanding games.



trt740 said:


> Flat out stupid price I cannot believe how dumb this card is at this price unless NV just wanted to be king of the hill and only made these to sell their lower cards. Like the the 9800gtx. It would have made better sense to make a 8800gtx2 or 9600gtx2 but what the heck is this price. Why would you buy this when you can buy a 9800gx2 for as low as 400.00 and only lose a few frames. They couldn't come with anything better than this.



Only lose a few frames? The GX2 loses way too many frames as it is, considering WHAT it is as a product. The lesser minimum frames from the 280 is astonishingly better than the GX2. And in other cases it's faster.

Almost twenty more FPS in Crysis at 1920 res WITH 4xAA, that's a sick jump for a single card solution. That just took it out of the 'tolerable' field into the 'consistent enjoyment' ballpark altogether.

And I can get the 280 for less than four hundred and fifty GBP including VAT, you just have to know where to shop. At that price, I'd be willing to buy it outright, rather than wait on the que for EVGA's Step Up.


----------



## Wile E (Jun 19, 2008)

newconroer said:


> Shame they didn't include Age of Conan. I have fortunatley seen a review out there that does use AOC along with Crysis and the other common demanding games.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


It doesn't matter that it's a single gpu or not. All that matters is price to performance ratio. This card falls on it's face in that category. $50 more than the GX2? Ok, sure, justifiable. But there's a $200 price difference between the cheapest 280 and the cheapest GX2 on Newegg. You'd have to be insane to think that's justifiable. Once the price drops some, and drivers mature a little more, things may change a little, but as it stands, it's too expensive for what you get.


----------



## DaMulta (Jun 19, 2008)

FUGGER said:
			
		

> Games;
> 
> I am a gamer and will run my card at stock for highest reliability.
> 
> ...


http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=191413


----------



## Mussels (Jun 19, 2008)

my brother (rampage) just got a GTX280 for $700au.... sigh.


----------



## Wile E (Jun 19, 2008)

DaMulta said:


> http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=191413



Considering he gets them for free, I would switch if I were him, too. I still wouldn't pay the $200 price premium over the GX2 for one tho. I think many people are gonna wait for price drops, or more mature drivers.

But 20k in 06 on a dual core is quite impressive.


----------



## Easy Rhino (Jun 19, 2008)

i agree about price to performance ratio if you are on a budget. but some people simply have to have the best.


----------



## GSG-9 (Jun 19, 2008)

not to mention this is Nvidias most expensive (to build) card they have ever made (by card I mean the actual gpu). When prices to do fall, they may lose money.


----------

