Galaxy is a familiar brand to many gamers, but it is certainly not one of the best known. Galaxy also operates in America under the name of video card vendor KFA². This is somehow done for the reason that Galaxy is already known in their region, though the name doesn't sound good enough for the US market. To get a better grip on the market they have reinvented themselves and will hit hard to their rightful place. Though for us Galaxy isn't really a stranger at all and have already a good reputation which they can present us. The GeForce GTX 260+ Overclock edition adds a nice entry to Galaxy's modest product lineup, but does it add value to an already crowded performance video card market? - HardOCP

Galaxy GeForce GTX 260+ Overclock Version Review

The GeForce GTX 260 edition was originally launched last June. It featured 192 streaming processors, 28 raster operating units and 64 texture filtering units. The GPU core was clocked at 576MHz, and the streaming processors were set to 1242MHz. It featured 896MB of GDDR3 on board, running at 1998MHz on a 448-bit wide bus. Just 3 months later, NVIDIA launched a supplement to the GeForce GTX 260, adding some enhancements. The updated GPU features 216 streaming processors and 72 texture filtering units. And the suggested clock rates, memory capacity and memory interface bus remained unchanged.

The Galaxy GeForce GTX 260+ Overclock version is the first GeForce GTX 200 series video card we've seen from Galaxy. As the name suggests, the GeForce GTX 260+ Overclock version comes to us overclocked by Galaxy. The clock rate on the GPU core has been increased to 656MHz, and the streaming processors have been overclocked to 1405MHz. And the memory is also overclocked, from 1998MHz stock to 2260MHz out of the box. The packing this video card arrived in is solid. It feels strong and does not flex when handled. It is small, but not so small as to cause concerns about shipping it. So rather right for handling.

The outer carton itself appears to be a generic GeForce GTX 200 series box, with stickers attached to denote the actual contents. The video card itself is identical to virtually every other GeForce GTX 260 based video card out there. It features a large, high gloss black plastic shroud covering the entire video card, front and back. On the front of the video card and on the fan's hub, there are Galaxy brand stickers applied. The back side of the video card is also covered with the same shiny black plastic, but with some ventilation slits exposing a bit of the black PCB and it sports two dual link DVI and a TV output connector.

To overclock the Galaxy GeForce GTX 260+ Overclock edition, we used NVIDIA's nTune software. We increased the clock speed on the GPU core, shader and memory until the video card failed or the output was corrupted. Out of the box, this Galaxy video card has the GPU core overclocked by 80MHz to 656MHz. We were able to overclock it a little further, but less than we had hoped. We took the GPU core up to 702MHz, and the shader core up to 1485MHz. The memory didn't overclock any better, allowing us to only go up to 2376MHz effective. Of course, taken from a stock speed standpoint, it's a decent overclock.

Now Galaxy has delivered to us a promising video card. Their GeForce GTX 260+ Overclocked version has solid potential. If Galaxy and its vendors can get the street price down to more reasonable levels they will have a real killer on their hands. As we've said time and time again, a video card's value is ultimately determined by its price and performance. Galaxy has the performance part in place, it provides real-world improvements to the game play experience over a standard GeForce GTX 260 card. You will pay extra for this performance though. Which isn't an issue considering the performance though the competition is hard.

The 2-year warranty at first may seem short, but in the grand scheme of things we know you guys upgrade often so two years is mostly fine. Still, there are competitors offering lifetime and transferable warranties which makes it hard to recommend a video card with a shorter one with competition like that. Worth mentioning is that Galaxy does not make you jump through warranty registration hoops to get your warranty and it is transferable. Galaxy has a solid video card, their hardware and performance is great, now they need to work a bit on pricing, and perhaps a longer warranty period if they really want to compete.