The GT200 core is the basis for two of NVIDIA's latest graphics offerings. The full version of the GT200 is used on the GeForce GTX 280, whereas the crippled version of the GT200 serves as a backbone to the GeForce GTX 260 cards. The GeForce GTX 280 packs all the hardware treats, whereas the GeForce GTX 260 has one raster operating channel and two shader clusters less. Each shader cluster features three shading multiprocessors, and each packing eight stream processors, totaling to 24 shaders per cluster. That tells us that the GeForce GTX 260 is left with 192 stream processors, but it's still more than the GeForce 9800 GTX graphics cards have to offer. - FudZilla

EVGA e-GeForce GTX 260 For The Win Board Review

Our today's guest is an overclocked EVGA e-GeForce GTX 260 card running at 666MHz. Three sixes are here to win, and the card bears the name For The Win. You'll see that the EVGA e-GeForce GTX 260 FTW card is very fast, thanks to its overclocked core, and it's closer to GeForce GTX 280 results than reference GeForce GTX 260 running at reference 576MHz. The shaders on EVGA's card run at 1404MHz and the memory at 2214MHz. NVIDIA has built quite a large chip, and the GT200 features 1400 million transistors in a 65nm process. Most of the new transistors are used to improve GPU's computing capabilities.

The GeForce GTX 260's clock speed is almost identical to the GeForce 8800 GTX's. We often compare it to the older GeForce 8800 GTX, in terms of the G80 revolutionizing the way we look at graphics card performance. However the GT200 is a chip with double the number of transistors and a juiced up setup we've seen on the G80, so we're expecting some serious improvement. Still, the performance increase is not just doubling, although it will be in certain cases. While the GeForce 8800 GTX runs at 575MHz, the GeForce GTX 260 runs only 1MHz faster. The stream processors on the old GeForce 8800 GTX run faster.

Talking about the memory, we once again see a strange configuration and the GeForce GTX 260 packs 896MB of GDDR3 memory. The memory interface is 448-bit compared to the 512-bit on the GeForce GTX 280. This number is a direct result of the GeForce GTX 260 having one raster operation partition less. Each of the GeForce GTX 280's eight raster partitions is connected to a 64-bit memory controller, so we get 512-bit memory interface. Knowing that GeForce GTX 260 features seven raster operation units, it totals to only 448-bit memory interface and meaning GeForce GTX 260 needs forteen chips for its 896MB of memory.

EVGA did a great job overclocking the GeForce GTX 260 card. They named it For The Win and clocked it to relatively high 666MHz. The shaders on this card run at 1404MHz and the memory at 2214MHz. We've seen that in average, this card scores ten percent better than the reference cards. The EVGA e-GeForce GTX 260 FTW is a GT200 based card with 192 stream processors and 896MB of GDDR3 memory, which makes it one of the best cards on the market. The GeForce GTX 280 is, of course better, but it will also set you back $150 extra, whereas EVGA's overclocked e-GeForce GTX 260 FTW performs very close to it.

If you want to treat yourself to some GT200 goodness, and can't really afford the GeForce GTX 280, then the EVGA e-GeForce GTX 260 FTW is a great choice and certainly the fastest GeForce GTX 260 card on the market. And once again the gaming performance and experience will be damn close to that of the reference GeForce GTX 280 graphics card.