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ZOTAC GeForce GTX 280 1GB AMP Video Card
Video, Power, and Overclocking
HQV
(Show All Graphs)
130
130
130
128
0
Score (out of 130, higher is better)
160
100
100
100
100
0
Score (out of 130, higher is better)
160
Any problems NVIDIA has had with video acceleration are gone. Personally, I believe that the saturation and contrast are tweaked too high, but that's something that can be corrected for in the driver's PureVideo control panel. 
Power Usage
(Show All Graphs)
39
43
67
75
0
Watts (lower is better)
250
95
104
125
191
0
Watts (lower is better)
250
But damn, does all that power come at a cost, and a compounding one at that. Theoretically, the card can consume as little as 25W (Vista Aero is enabled for the idle power consumption test) but even it's more reasonable 43W minimum is very nice. It stops there, as the power jumps another 50W running a screensaver. And gaming? 290W! This is the greediest card of all time, as well. Cooling is a big issue. The card has to dissipate all that power, and sure, at idle, the card is innocuous. Audibly invisible. The harmless profile goes all Mr. Hyde in an instant, and makes the historically offensive 2900 XT seem polite. That is to say, this is one hella loud card. And the way it's locked into its heatsink, aftermarket cooling is probably going to be a water-cooler's exercise. The heat spreading does wonders: when this card runs, the whole package gets scalding hot. 
Overclocking
(Show All Graphs)
674
602
0
MHz
1500
1240
1107
0
MHz
1500
I am surprised that this card overclocks, period, but I squeezed a healthy 12% OC across the board. I was afraid the whole time, though, that the card would start to glow. Given that this is already a factory-overclocked card, it absolutely screams.
Page 1: Introduction, The Card & Bundle, Specs & Setup
Page 2: DirectX 10 Titles Page 3: DX9, OpenGL, and Synthetics Page 4: Video, Power, and Overclocking Page 5: Conclusion 
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Add Comment
2 User Comments 1 - Posted by
aireiq
on July 16, 2008 - 10:28 pm > The enameled carapace is flanged and enameled... I guess they call that truth in advertising.... 2 - Posted by
Blackened
on July 17, 2008 - 12:39 pm As of the publishing of this article you can find the GTX280 for roughly $470. At $600 this card is too expensive, but at the current price this card is a beast.
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