NVIDIA GeForce GTX 200 Series

If you want to play the latest video games at high resolutions of 2560 x 1600 or 1920 x 1200, the XFX GTX 285 Black Edition is the card for you. It will play Crysis or COD at high resolutions with all of the eye candy turned on and still give silky smooth frame rates.

The new XFX GTX 280 is a fantastic performer and bests all but a few of the highest overclocked 9800 GX2 cards at stock GTX 280 clock speeds. XFX also bundles the card with the game Assassin’s Creed for some gaming action right out of the box. Overclocked versions of the XFX GTX 280 are coming soon and will bring even more performance. The XFX GTX 280 is an awesome high-end video card for those with the budget.

The XFX GTX 280 XXX is one of the more expensive video cards on the market right now. It's only a bit more costly than the stock clocked version so if you are in the market for a video cards in the $450 range and can scrape up another $20 I say go for the XXX version -- especially if you like to play Crysis.

The XFX GeForce GTX 280 XXX not only allowed us to play Age of Conan at 2560x1600 but it also allowed us to enable 2X AA. In a game like this if you can increase your resolution to 2560x1600 and enable AA your world view is significantly increased making the entire gameplay experience much more immersive, and easier to navigate.

Kyle’s note: I do think we would be remiss to not point out the battle still raging on when it comes to the GTX 280 and the 4870X2. The cards trade blows back and forth, but given the pricing of a stock GeForce GTX 280 today, I think it is easy to say that the GTX 280 is a better value than the 4870X2.

I'm sure it goes without saying that NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 280 is the fastest single-GPU graphics board on the market right now, and that looks likely to remain the case for some time (55nm die shrink for GT200 notwithstanding). This is where XFX's GeForce 280 XXX comes into the picture.  By taking the reference boards high performance and bumping it higher still, it creates a graphics offering that can not only power most titles at 2560x1600, but it can also do so with anti-aliasing enabled, thus offering up a near-perfect gaming experience for anyone with a huge LCD screen to power and a craving to play all the latest games.  XFX's part here also carves out a niche for people looking to game at a lower resolution, but utilising NVIDIA's 16xQ anti-aliasing mode. In closing then, the XFX GeForce GTX 280 XXX is beyond God-like in the performance that it offers, and that can only be applauded and rewarded (and, in our case, awarded too). 

The XFX GeForce GTX 280 1GB XXX has proven itself to be the fastest single card on the market at present. It ran flawlessly at its factory overclocked speeds of 670/1458/1250 without problems. Power Consumption was just a little more than a reference GeForce GTX 280, coming in at a peak of 410W from the readout of our wall socket power meter. Temperatures were also kept in check, with the card idling at 46ºC and peaking at 79ºC during our load test. The XFX card's fan behaviour was similiar and not any louder compared to the reference GeForce GTX 280. 

Other than a few freak scores that were repeatable by the G92-based 8800GTS, the XFX GTX 280 took 30 out of 32 tests in the single GPU comparison. Against the 9800GX2 and 3870X2, the GTX 280 took the top spot or was tied in 15 out of 32 benchmark tests. A pretty solid performance. During testing, the temperatures of the XFX GTX 280 never got out of hand; at 74 degrees Celsius, it seems to run a bit cooler than some of the other cards in Nvidia's stable. The airflow from the rear of the card is more than just a soft push to discharge the heat - the cooler on the GTX 280 pushes a huge volume of air to keep temperatures in check, more so than any other card I have used. Pros: Single GPU performance, PhysX ready, Video transcoding, Parallel processing, Tri-SLI capable, Temperatures, Hybrid Power

I do have to say that it’s surprising to see just how close the GTX 260 performs to the GTX 280 in resolutions up to 2560 x 1600. Only at 2560 x 1600 does the GTX 280 begin to show clear signs of a performance increase. Considering the price of the GTX 260 compared to the GTX 280, it could be considered quite the bargain. XFX has done a good job with the card; the price is alright, availability is growing, performance is attractive and the bundle is pretty good with a full version copy of Assassin’s Creed in the package.

The XFX GeForce 260 GTX (or the newer Core 216 260 GTX) is a great performer in all the latest games and will satisfy the needs of all gamers playing at resolutions up to 1920x1200. The XFX GeForce 260 GTX is covered by XFX's awesome Double Lifetime Protection Warranty (USA & Canada only). XFX will repair and service the card for life, for free, even if the card has been pushed to its limits. The warranty can be transferred to the second owner, which can increase the resale value of the card. It'll be hard to find a card with a better value to performance ratio than the XFX GeForce 260 GTX for the holiday season.

Thanks to its blazing clock speeds, XFX’s GeForce GTX 260 Black Edition swept our performance benchmarks, outrunning the stock GeForce GTX 260 boards as well as both Radeons in both 4xAA and 8xAA.  It’s the 8xAA benchmarks that surprised us the most. Previously the Radeon 4870 has reigned supreme in our 8xAA testing. This all changes though thanks to NVIDIA’s latest ForceWare 180 drivers

. The new drivers deliver tangible performance improvements in many DX9 and DX10 apps. But drivers aren’t the only factor. XFX also overclocks their Black Edition board higher than any other 216 shader GeForce GTX 260 on the market. This is what really pushed the card over the edge in our benchmarks. In our testing the XFX Black Edition card outran NVIDIA’s stock 216-shader GTX 260 by up to 11% in Far Cry 2, Left 4 Dead, and CoD: World At War, with even bigger gains in Crysis and Dead Space. These bonuses, when combined with the Black Edition’s superior 3D performance, really push the card over the top in our opinion. If you’ve budgeted $300 for your next graphics upgrade, XFX’s GeForce GTX 260 Black should be at the very top of your list.

The XFX GTX 260 Black Edition is an incredibly impressive piece of hardware. With the Double Lifetime Warranty, the XFX GTX 260 Black Edition carries one of the best warranties in the market. Couple that with the bundled game and this becomes quite a compelling package. Power consumption also was comparable or lower than that of the HD 4870. Legit Bottom Line: XFX pulls out all the stops with the GeForce GTX 260 Black Edition and gives you a graphics card that will play current game titles at mainstream monitor resolutions.

As a last word we can say that the XFX 260GTX is suggested to to anyone who needs a speed jump over a previous generation graphics card and at the same time, have a future-proof product. Adding an extra or even two XFX 260GTX cards would surely will keep you busy for a long time before jumping to another platform.

XFX almost always gives one game title or another in their retail boxed VGA products and this bundle includes COD4, which in my book is one of the best action/FPS games to come out in years. This alone makes the XFX XXX look more appealing, and we all love something free that is good with our purchases. XFX also has an outstanding warranty and RMA department that gets the job done in a timely manner, as well as a good support team if you need someone to talk to about your system problems related to their products. The XXX version of the card is an overclocked version of the chipset and offers a bit more performance than the reference 260 cards and costs about $25.00 more than the average card, so it's not a bad, price versus performance cost to endure. I give the XFX XX GTX260 A Gamers Gold Award, it's a good card, at a decent price, with an excellent bundle.

If however, you play at 1920x1200 or lower, then the XFX GeForce GTX 260 XXX is clearly the better value for you. For $279.99 the XFX GeForce GTX 260 XXX offers a very high level of gameplay experience in every game, and is the real champ of this evaluation. A stock clocked version of the GTX 260 will run you as little as $240 after MIR with Free Shipping. Certainly not as big a cost delta as we see with the XXX version of the GTX 280. Considering the warranty that is extended on this highly overclocked XX card that allows you to install your own cooling system, you might very well find the GTX 260 XXX worth the additional cost.

XFX GeForce GTX 260 640M XXX was up to 19% faster than the standard GeForce GTX 260, depending on the program and video configuration. You will achieve, on average, a 10% performance increase with this overclocked model from XFX, which is quite interesting, as it costs around 10% more than the standard GTX 260. Paying ten percent more to have ten percent more performance looks very attractive, especially when you think that price and performance usually don’t increase at the same proportion.

If you are planning on buying Call of Duty 4, then this video card is a terrific option, as it comes with this game. Since this game costs around USD 50 you are in fact paying USD 280 for this video card (USD 330 – USD 50). If you had already decided to buy a GeForce GTX 260, then this model from XFX can be an interesting option. For 10% increase in price you get a 10% increase in performance, on average. Not a bad deal.