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EVGA GeForce GTX 260 896MB FTW Video Card
Introduction
The GTX 260 has been overlooked. Passed over as a cut-down 280, you'd expect it to be lame, poorly-bred video card. The way I see it, it kicks like a mule. Yes, it's true, the 260 was once a die intended to become a 280, but the flaws which frustrated it are, perhaps unintentionally, its strengths. Honestly, there are very few computers fast enough to drive a GTX 280. It's a resource black hole, making every app a CPU-limited one, drawing more power than any other single-GPU ever made. It blows out heat like there were tubes on the inside, and you can literally scald hands on its non-stick heatsink. In most cases, with a regular computer, a 260 will ever-so-slightly lag behind a 280. EVGA's FTW factory-overclocked card spends more time tying with the 280 than it does barely trailing it, all the while consuming less power, staying cool, and running silently.     First Impressions It, from the outside, is identical to the 280, with its two-pounder of a heatsink, slickly wrapped around the entire card. Because the 260 has 58 fewer stream processing units it doesn't need as much cooling; this bodes well for the fan speeds all around. I mean, I wouldn't kick a 280 out of bed for eating crackers, but it's loud.       Along the top of the card are twin SLI connectors, for dual- and triple-SLI, and two six-pin power connectors, for normal operation. The lacquered heatsink is sticker-painted with a uniquely EVGA-themed metal spark motif. Not what I'd go and imply but it does look cool, in a spinning-out-of-control, going-down-in-flames kind of way. In the chrome-lettered box is one (1) video card, a driver disk, manual, and quick-start guide, two DVI-to-VGA adapters, two 4-pin-to-6-pin Molex power adapters, a video breakout cable, and a case badge. Gossamer inclusions are EVGA's 90-day Step-Up Program, which lets you return your card for its full value towards a bigger, badasser card, and their can't-ever-void-it warranty. Specifications Performance - NVIDIA GTX200 - 666 MHz GPU - 192 Processing Cores - 400 MHz RAMDAC Memory - 896 MB, 448 bit - 2214 MHz (effective) - 123.9 GB/s Memory Bandwidth Interface - PCI-E 2.0 - DVI-I, DVI-I, HDTV-7 - SLI Capable Resolution & Refresh - 240Hz Max Refresh Rate - 2560x1600 Max Analog - 2560x1600 Max Digital Requirements - Minimum of a 500 Watt power supply. (Minimum recommended power supply with +12 Volt current rating of 36 Amp Amps.) Test Setup In this review, we'll be comparing the EVGA GeForce GTX 260 896MB FTW to: - PowerColor Radeon HD 4850 512MB - Diamond Radeon HD 4870 512MB - PNY GeForce 9800 GTX 512MB - Zotac GeForce GTX 280 1GB AMP All cards were benched on the same test computer with recent drivers (April or newer).  Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 3GHz Asus Rampage Formula 2GB Crucial Ballistix Tracer DDR2 800 @ 4-4-4-12 (Sponsored by Crucial) Thermaltake Toughpower 1000 (Sponsored by Thermaltake) Windows Vista Ultimate x64 (Sponsored by Microsoft)
Page 1: Introduction, First Looks, Specifications & Test 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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