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Introduction
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NVIDIA launched the GeForce GTX 280 and GTX 260 graphics cards on June 17, 2008. Both are based on the NVIDIA GT200 GPU which uses NVIDIA's improved, second-generation unified architecture. The new GT200 GPU, features amongst other things :
- 240 stream processors
- Twice the number of registers
- Fast local 16k shared memory (per cluster of 8 stream processors)
- New texture scheduler
- Double precision accuracy
- 3X ROP blending performance
For more information on the NVIDIA GT200 GPU, please take a look at the NVIDIA GTX 280 & GTX 260 Technology Report.
As one of NVIDIA's biggest retail partner, ASUS has no less than six different GTX 260 models. They consist of three versions, each available with or without HDMI support. The three major versions are the basic ENGTX260, the ENGTX260/G game bundle kit and the top-of-the-line ENGTX260 TOP overclocked edition. The card we are reviewing is the ASUS ENGTX260 TOP, specifically the non-HDMI version.
Before we start with the actual review, let's take a look at how the ASUS ENGTX260 TOP compares against a few graphics cards, including the standard GeForce GTX 260.
|
GeForce |
GeForce |
Radeon HD 4870 |
GeForce |
GeForce |
Architecture |
GT200 |
GT200 |
RV770 XT |
G92 |
G92 |
Manufacturing |
65 nm |
65 nm |
55 nm |
55 nm |
65 nm |
Transistor |
1400 Million |
1400 Million |
956 Million |
754 Million |
754 Million |
DirectX |
10 |
10 |
10.1 |
10 |
10 |
Interface |
PCIe 2.0 |
PCIe 2.0 |
PCIe 2.0 |
PCIe 2.0 |
PCIe 2.0 |
Stream Processors |
192 |
192 |
800 |
128 |
128 |
Textures Per Clock Cycle |
64 |
64 |
48 |
64 |
64 |
ROPs |
28 |
28 |
32 |
16 |
16 |
Vertex
Shader |
4.0 |
4.0 |
4.1 |
4.0 |
4.0 |
Pixel Shader |
4.0 |
4.0 |
4.1 |
4.0 |
4.0 |
Core Speed |
650 MHz |
576 MHz |
750 MHz |
738 MHz |
675 MHz |
Texture Fill Rate |
41,600 MTexels/s |
36,864 MTexels/s |
36,000 MTexels/s |
47,232 MTexels/s |
43,200 MTexels/s |
Pixel Fill Rate |
18,200 MPixels/s |
16,128 MPixels/s |
24,000 MPixels/s |
11,808 MPixels/s |
10,400 MPixels/s |
Memory
Bus |
448-bits |
448-bits |
256-bits |
256-bits |
256-bits |
Memory |
GDDR3 |
GDDR3 |
GDDR5 |
GDDR3 |
GDDR3 |
Memory Speed |
1150 MHz |
999 MHz |
900 MHz |
1100 MHz |
1100 MHz |
Memory |
128.80 GB/s |
111.89 GB/s |
115.20 GB/s |
70.40 GB/s |
70.40 GB/s |
Although the new GT200 GPU has 192 stream processors, it still delivers an average of 64 textures per clock cycle, the same as that of the GeForce 9800 GTX+ and the GeForce 8800 GTS 512MB. Because it runs at a much slower clock speed of 576 MHz, it actually has a much lower texture fillrate than its G92 predecessors. On the other hand, the GT200 has a much higher pixel fillrate with a very healthy boost in memory bandwidth to boot.
NVIDIA initially pegged the GeForce GTX 260 as superior to the ATI Radeon HD 4870 (with a stratospheric price to match). However, their specifications show that they are virtually direct competitors. As a result, the price of the GeForce GTX 260 took a huge tumble, bringing it down to the Radeon HD 4870's price point. The new price point, coupled with its support for PhysX, now makes the GeForce GTX 260 an attractive proposition.
ASUS took the GTX 260 one step further, offering the factory-overclocked TOP edition which they promise delivers 13% better performance than the standard GeForce GTX 260. They did so by overclocking the core by 12.8% to 650 MHz and the GDDR3 memory by 15% to 1150 MHz. Will it be as fast as they claim it to be? We will see soon enough.
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