Shootouts

What's the Right Price - A Trio of GeForce GTX 260

By Vincent Chang - 18 Jul 2008

Test Setup

Test Setup

As you should know by now, our testing has evolved into two different configurations, one running Windows XP and the other, Windows Vista. Here are the two system configurations:-

Windows XP SP2 Test System

  • Intel Core 2 Duo E6700 (2.66GHz)
  • Intel D975XBX 'Bad Axe' motherboard
  • 2 x 1GB DDR2-800 Kingston HyperX memory in dual channel mode
  • Seagate 7200.7 80GB SATA hard drive
  • Windows XP Professional with Service Pack 2 and DirectX 9.0c

Windows Vista SP1 Test System

  • Intel Core 2 Extreme QX6850 (3.00GHz)
  • Gigabyte X38T-DQ6 motherboard
  • 2 x 1GB DDR3-1333 Aeneon memory in dual channel mode
  • Seagate 7200.10 200GB SATA hard drive
  • Windows Vista Ultimate with SP1

Naturally, we compared these overclocked GTX 260 cards to its immediate opposition, in this case, the Radeon HD 4870 and a CrossFireX system with two Radeon HD 4850. We also added in the more powerful GTX 280 to find out if overclocking can reduce the gap between the two. All the GeForce GTX 260 cards were testing using ForceWare 177.34 but for the others, here's the list of cards and the tested driver versions used for both the Windows XP and Vista setups:-

  • ATI Radeon HD 4870 512MB (Catalyst 8.6, Series-5)
  • ATI Radeon HD 4850 512MB (Catalyst 8.6)
  • ATI Radeon HD 4850 512MB (CrossFireX) (Catalyst 8.6)
  • NVIDIA GeForce GTX 280 1GB (ForceWare 177.34)

Here's a recap of the specifications of the three GeForce GTX 260:-

The GeForce GTX 260s at a glimpse.
Graphics Card Core Clock Memory Clock Stream Processor Clock Estimated Retail Price
Leadtek WinFast GTX 260 576MHz 1998MHz DDR 1242MHz S$599
XFX GeForce GTX 260 640M  640MHz 2300MHz DDR 1363MHz US$329
Zotac GeForce GTX 260 AMP! Edition 650MHz 2100MHz DDR 1400MHz US$349

The following benchmarks were tested using their built-in time demo or benchmarking tools:-

For Windows XP

  • Futuremark 3DMark06 (ver 110)
  • Company of Heroes (ver 1.3)
  • F.E.A.R (ver 1.0)
  • Crysis (ver 1.1)
  • Unreal Tournament 3 (ver 1.1)

For Windows Vista

  • Futuremark 3DMark Vantage (ver 101)
  • Crysis (ver 1.21)
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