AMD's Radeon HD 4800 series brought high-end performance to the mainstream price points and sparked a heated round of price-cuts from NVIDIA, thereby repositioning its products more competitively. Then, just yesterday, AMD went for the jugular with the launch of the Radeon HD 4870 X2 2GB card that trounced a GeForce GTX 280 when evaluated with respect to ultra high resolution gaming. Our performance comparison showed that NVIDIA's partners would need to release a heavily overclocked GeForce GTX 280 to come close to competing for the crown of fastest single board graphics card. So we trotted out BFG's OCX version, to see if it could make a dent into the twin-GPU from AMD. - Hexus

BFG GeForce GTX 280 OCX Version Graphics Review

BFG's GeForce GTX 280 OCX appears physically identical to the reference GeForce GTX 280 design, and only the addition of an OCX sticker to the fan sets it apart. It's the fastest of BFG's triumvirate of air cooled GeForce GTX 280 cards, supplanted only by the even higher clocked H²OC model that uses a pre-attached waterblock. The OCX board ships with clock speeds of 665MHz core, 1458MHz shader and 2400MHz effective memory clock speed. Clearly, BFG has purchased high yielding GPU's and added high performance GDDR3 memory to attain the OCX's clocks and delivering outstanding performance.

The rear of the GeForce GTX 280 reference design is enclosed in a protective shroud, with the dual SLI bridges protected by rubberised cover. One can add a second and third board for increased frame rates, motherboard and cash permitting. The GeForce GTX 280 requires one 8-pin and one 6-pin PCI Express power connector, and it churns through 236W when under full load. However, as per the reference design, the fan is impressively quiet. Looking at the card in full-on profile gives a better impression of how the sloped shroud design allows the it to breathe a bit easier when squeezed against another card in SLI mode.

The BFG GeForce GTX 280 OCX manages to become the fastest single GPU card we've tested, and yet it's easily overshadowed by AMD's dual-GPU on a single PCB Radeon HD 4870 X2 graphics card. In some games that do not scale so well with internal CrossFire the BFG GeForce GTX 280 OCX would be the better buy, but all the games in our benchmark suite see excellent scaling when comparing the Force3D Radeon HD 4870 to the Sapphire Radeon HD 4870 X2, and that makes the distinction between single card and single GPU less of an issue. Though with the X2 we see that AMD is back in the game, right at the top.

So whilst the BFG GeForce GTX 280 OCX achieves the objective of being the fastest GeForce GTX 280 that we've tested, and it ships with considerable pre-overclocking for a minimal outlay over default clocked cards. The OCX is a good enough product when considered in isolation but falls down when measured against the lofty performance standards laid down by the Radeon HD 4870 X2, and this is what this end of the market is all about. Yes, NVIDIA's progressions with CUDA and PhysX are all well and good, adding shine to the GeForce GTX 200 series, but they're largely incidental for the die-hard gamer, we reckon.

The $600 ceiling imposed by reference clocked Radeon HD 4870 X2's means that, for them to remain competitive in the high-end market, the GeForce GTX 280 pricing needs to drop to around $450, and pre-overclocked models have to etail for sub-$525, a far cry from just two months ago. This is one of the best GeForce GTX 280 cards that attracts only a $45 premium over default clocked efforts. However, for it to be a tenable solution with the Radeon HD 4870 X2 looming large, etail pricing needs to drop to around $475.