Test Rig Configuration

That's it about the card itself, from a hardware and design point of view. Leaving you with all with this impression on the Gainward GeForce GTX 260 edition with single GPU processing we are going to move to the performance you can expect from this graphics accelerator. The system used to compile and analyze the gaming performance figures is build around the high-end Intel Core 2 Duo technology, which will provide extensive central processing power supporting the GT200 visual and processing capabilities. We are using our new and high performing system based around the Intel 975X Express chipset powering our mainboard. So, let's go through the system specifications...

• Intel Core 2 Duo E6700 3.00GHz Dual Core Processor
• ASUS P5W Digital Home Deluxe (i975X) Mainboard
• Crucial Ballistix Tracer 2GB PC2-6400 Dual Memory
• Gainward GeForce GTX 260 868MB Graphics Card
• Gainward BLISS 9800 GX2 1GB Version Graphics Card
• Western Digital 320GB Caviar SE 8MB Cache Hard Disk
• PC Power & Cooling 610W (SLI Ready) Power Supply
• Cooler Master Stacker 832 (RC-832) Tower Case
• Arctic Cooling MX-2 Performance Thermal Compound
• Dell UltraSharp 30" 3007WFP (Black) LCD Flat Display
• Microsoft Windows XP Professional incl. SP2 Edition
• Microsoft Windows Vista 32-bit Ultimate incl. SP1 Edition

As you can clearly see we have used some high performance components, and we would like to express our thanks to Crucial, PC Power & Cooling and most of all Gainward for their utmost generosity on supplying us with some excellent hardware. The ASUS mainboard is based around the great Intel 975X chipset supporting the Intel Core 2 Duo processor and DDR2 memory. We will be using our modest Core 2 Duo E6700 but running at 3.00GHz to support the high-end graphics cards. So both the mainboard and CPU are fine tuned to support this overclocking, to provide the maximum compatible and stable clock speeds. Currently the Core 2 Duo processors are the top of the market, with AMD trailing behind. Although the new triple and quad core CPU's have brought a bit more competition on the central processors market, but are still running behind.

Additional Specifications

First we will grab some information from Everest Ultimate Edition and get some feedback on the video card sub system. Lavalys was nice enough to allow us to evaluate their software for our reviews. We really like the wealth of information this utility gives us and we thank Lavalys for their support. Everest Ultimate Edition 2007 is the cutting-edge benchmarking and diagnostics tool to maximize security, performance, and troubleshooting capabilities for home and office PC environments, PC professionals and consulting firms as well as OEM partners and configuration centers worldwide. We ran some analyzing tests using Everest and this is what we got.

Well, the GeForce GTX 260 graphics card is not at all so different as to what we have seen previously with the GeForce 9 series cards from NVIDIA. In fact since the GeForce 8 series all the processing logic is based around the unified shader technology. The GeForce GTX 260 card is based upon the same technology and architecture to redefine the shader technology as the previously introduced first G80 based GeForce 8800 series. So these stream processors are capable of being dynamically allocated to the vertex, pixel, geometry or physics operations. The main difference is that NVIDIA is just going one step further with each new series by increasing the amount of stream processors, but that isn't all as they have introduced as well their PhysX technology which creates rich, immersive physical effects with stunningly accurate realism. Next to that they have also introduced the CUDA technology, unlocking the power of GPU's processing cores to accelerate the most demanding system tasks.

	GeForce GTX 260	GeForce GTX 280
Core Speed	576MHz	602MHz
Memory Speed	1998MHz	2214MHz
Stream Processors	192	240
Shader Speed	1242MHz	1296MHz
Memory Size	896MB GDDR3	1024MB GDDR3
Memory Interface	448-bit	512-bit

The Gainward GeForce GTX 260 edition comes clocked at 576/1998MHz with a shader clock of 1242MHz speed. The GeForce GTX 260 edition is powered by the GT200 core, featuring 192 stream processors and 28 raster operations units. When comparing this to the real top of the line GeForce GTX 280, it means that NVIDIA has disabled a portion of the shader logic and memory interface to come to the GeForce GTX 260 version. This isn't really a surprise as it is a common technique used as well by ATI to differentiate products coming from one graphics chipset. This means that NVIDIA is just producing one single GT200 chipset but is crippling these so that they can make two high-end graphics version out of these, or actually since recently three versions as they also introduced the GeForce GTX 260 Core 216 edition. This Core 216 variant is just the already known GeForce GTX 260 but with 216 stream processors being enabled.

One thing we didn't mention yet is what is included in the Gainward bundle, so just to briefly mention that you get a driver CD, Gainward quick start manual, some cables, DVI to VGA converter and HDMI adapter. So a very decent bundle with all items included, though no game title being present and the bundle as such is coming at an okay price tag. In the end we always think why do we need a game included? Cause most of the time the game is either already older, or you might have it already. But yes if you see that some competitors due follow the market and are now adding Far Cry 2 to their bundle it can make a difference. Before going further, we would like to show of the Gainward GeForce GTX 260 graphics card being placed in our Intel system. Let's do that and see how this GeForce GTX 260 graphics card fills up our free PCI Express expansion slot.

Yeah installed and ready to power our system. But before we go on, this card looks good in our system, what are we saying it looks awesome! We can already notice that the cooling does not interfere with any surrounding motherboard components. Now, due to the fact that the Gainward GeForce GTX 260 edition is a dual slot design it takes up a bit more space. And to that extend the space that the GeForce GTX 260 will take in your case it still okay and is the same as any dual slot high-end single GPU graphics card these days. That's it folks, time to hit up some synthetic benchmarks. We used the ForceWare 178.13 drivers from NVIDIA and will be using Futuremark and AquaMark benchmark utilities and stack up some popular game titles. Let's hit the road...