Word on the GT200 has been floating around for a while now, and we've seen a number of leaked benchmarks all over the world wide interweb. With the NDA being lifted, it's time to check out what exactly is going on with the new card. The particular card we're looking at today is from Zotac and is the AMP! edition, which as you may have guessed is an overclocked model. Speculation on the GeForce GTX 280 has been all over the place with word that performance is up to 50% faster than the GeForce 9800 GX2. We will be checking out exactly how much faster the new GeForce GTX 280 is when compared to the GeForce 9800 GX2, and how it compares against the top AMD range offering. - TweakTown

Zotac GeForce GTX 280 AMP! Graphics Board Review

Straight away we can see that Zotac has moved the box to a portrait style one as opposed to the standard landscape design we normally see. Across the top of the box we see mention that it's made by Zotac, and at the bottom of the box we can see the model mentioned, which is of course the GeForce GTX 280. It's also highlighted that the video card is an AMP! edition. The upper right of the box makes mention of 1GB of GDDR3 memory, 512-bit memory interface, two dual link DVI connectors, overclocked and a few other key features. The left of the box makes mention that a full version game is included in the package.

Turning the box over, we have a picture of the card along with a bit of a blurb about the card and its advantages. We also see some of the main features explained along with a feature table that shows what is needed for a 3-Way SLI setup. With the package out of the way, it's time to check out the card. Having a look over it, there isn't anything too out of the ordinary going on with the cooler design. The cooler takes up the whole card which is pretty common for higher end cards these days, and the design is very similar to the GeForce 9800 GTX with the main difference being a square design.

We also see a sticker on the cooler that lets us know the brand, model and the fact that the card is again an AMP! edition. Checking out the back of the card, we see a similar design to the GeForce 9800 GX2 where the entire card was covered with a shroud. Along the back of the card we also have some vents where some of the hotter components have a bit of room to breathe. Moving around the card, towards the back and across the top we have our power connectors which out of the box are covered with a warning sticker. Underneath the sticker we find two connectors, an 8-pin and a 6-pin power connection.

Out of the box, a stock clocked GeForce GTX 280 is coming with a 600MHz core, 1300MHz shader clock and 2200MHz effective memory clock on the 1GB of GDDR3 memory. While the GeForce GTX 280 might not sound that impressive when compared to the GeForce 9800 GTX, there are some big improvements in some of the more important areas. Instead of a 256-bit interface, we have a 512-bit one. Stream processors are also up from 128 to 240 in total. The new GeForce GTX 280 also includes PhysX and Cuda technology which is something we will go into more detail on when the drivers become available in the near future.

With all that said Zotac has upped the ante on their version of the card pushing the core to 700MHz the shader to 1400MHz and the memory clock to 2200MHz effective. So, that's the GeForce GTX 280. There is no doubt that you're probably left as underwhelmed as myself at the moment. The rumors that the card was going to be quite faster than the GeForce 9800 GX2 were clearly un-true, which is disappointing. But at the same time, it's probably a bit optimistic. The other thing that is worth noting is that we still don't have a PhysX driver for the card, which is a bit of a joke we must say.

The other thing is that unlike the GeForce 9800 GX2 we tested with today, the GeForce GTX 280 is overclocked out of the box from Zotac, making the card a little faster than the stock clocked offerings that we will no doubt see. So what are our actual thoughts on the card? Okay, yes it's nice that we've got the performance of two GPU's on one card that takes less power, but at the moment an immature driver doesn't give us the gains that we probably expected to see with a 512-bit memory interface and an increase in stream processors. Do we think the GeForce GTX 280 is going to be performing better in a months time?

Absolutely, will it be too late? We're not too sure. The other thing we have to say before we wrap this all up is that we've checked the Radeon HD 4850, and we've tested it in CrossFire. Now, if we hadn't seen those cards we may have been more impressed with the GeForce GTX 280 card, but we have. We've seen the performance figures the cards put out. We also know the price on a pair of Radeon HD 4850's is going to be under $550, while the new GeForce GTX 280 in stock form seems to be launching at the absolute cheapest in Australia in the low $650 area.