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- Date:
- Monday , July 28, 2008
- Author:
- Mark Warner
- Editor:
- Brent Justice
- Google +1
BFGTech GeForce GTX 280 OCX
BFGTech's best single-GPU video card is with us today, ready to be put through its real world gaming paces. We compare it to the stock-clocked GTX 280 as well as ATI's best offering. We had some results that we did not expect and ones that might surprise you as well!
Introduction
With high-quality products, solid support, and lifetime warranties BFGTech has carved out a place for itself in the ferocious North American video card market. Their "by gamers, for gamers" philosophy and close relationship with NVIDIA has established BFG Technologies as a premium video card brand in the USA. Its own website states:
Many of our employees are gamers and PC enthusiasts, and we provide hardware and marketing that reflects our passion and excitement for the latest technology.
BFGTech produces video cards, motherboards, power supplies, and a host of other accessories. For this evaluation, we're taking a good long look at the BFGTech GeForce GTX 280 OCX.
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 280 GPU
Launched on June 16, 2008, the GeForce GTX 200 series of GPUs is the first real improvement in NVIDIA's enthusiast class lineup since November of 2006. Built on a 65nm manufacturing process and encompassing a whopping 1.4 billion transistors, it boasts 240 stream processors, 32 render back ends units (ROPs), and 80 texture units. On this GPU, the GPU core, including ROPs, texture units, and everything else, come clocked at 602MHz, and the stream processors are at 1.296GHz. For this GPU, NVIDIA stuck to the tried and true (but aging) GDDR3 memory technology, employing 1024MB of memory on a 512-bit wide bus. Clocked at 2.14GHz, the memory gives us 141GB per second of throughput.
Of great concern to many of our readers, and rightly so, is the maximum power consumption and thermal threshold of this new GPU. It is rated to run at 236 Watts at full load and reach an operating temperature of up to 105 degrees Celsius, or 221 degrees Fahrenheit. That is a lot of power and a lot of heat, so gamers will need to make sure not only that their power supplies are up to the task, but that their cases are well cooled and offer plenty of ventilation.
When it was first released, the GeForce GTX 280 suffered from an unreasonably high MSRP of $649.99. Nonetheless, people bought them anyway, as hardcore enthusiasts do. However, shortly after the launch of the GTX 200 series, ATI launched its latest generation, which competes very nicely at a very attractive price point. Responding to competitive pressure from ATI, NVIDIA quickly slashed prices considerably in the following weeks, eventually landing at the GTX 280 $449.99. While this kind of price war is great for most consumers, it did leave a big fat "WTF!" lingering in the minds of people who had already purchased the GTX 280 at $650. Responding to that pressure, the big three North American distributors: BFGTech, EVGA, and XFX began offering rebates to their customers on previously purchased GT 200 series video cards in an effort to appease the growing unrest. The rebates ranged from $60 USD to $150 USD and while that doesn't necessarily bridge the gap between $650 and $450, it was a responsible gesture, and it is good to see.
BFGTech GeForce GTX 280 OCX
The BFGTech GeForce GTX 280 OCX represents the most powerful air-cooled video card that BFGTech offers. BFG does offer a water-cooled version with slightly higher clock speeds, but at a considerable price increase due to the addition of a custom water block.
Since this video card possesses the OCX branding, it represents the highest stable overclocks that BFGTech could reliably achieve. Using NVIDIA's standard cooling device, the BFGTech GeForce GTX 280 OCX comes with the GPU core overclocked by 63MHz to 665MHz, the shaders overclocked by 162MHz to 1458MHz, and the memory overclocked by 186MHz to 2.4GHz. That overclock increases the memory throughput of this device to 153.6GB per second, which is 12.6GB more than a stock NVIDIA GeForce GTX 280. Of course the big question is whether or not that increase will necessarily translate to a better gaming experience.
The box this video card comes in is small, considering the size of the video card contained within. It is also quite heavy. We are big fans of this kind of efficient packaging. It is no bigger and no smaller than it needs to be.
There is a large decal on the front of the box detailing the video cards specifications, system requirements, and the contents of the box. The back of the box is covered in multilingual marketing information, with a large amount of space given to BFGTech free tech support and limited lifetime warranty.
The video card is, frankly, big. It is 11 inches long, 4 inches tall and 1.5 inches thick. It is also covered, from head to toe, in a shiny black plastic shroud. It uses NVIDIA's stock cooling device with NVIDIA's stock cooling fan. Aside from the sticker on the front of the shroud, it is essentially physically identical to every other GeForce GTX 280 out there. It uses 2 power connectors: 1 6-pin auxiliary connector, and 1 8-pin auxiliary connector.
The back of the video card is also covered in black plastic. You can just barely see the black and brown PCB through some of the ventilation slots. On the top edge of the video card, there is a black rubber cap covering the SLI connectors, and another smaller black rubber cap covering the S/PDIF interface for use with the video card's HDMI adaptor for HDCP compliance.
At the front end of the video card, we see the standard 2 dual-link DVI ports and the HDTV ouput port.
In the box, there are 2 full-size paper instructions for setup and installation of the video card, as well as instructions for setting up HDMI. There is also an orange card detailing BFGTech's lifetime warranty and a small black cardstock folder. Inside the folder, there are two BFG case badge stickers, a user's manual, and a driver CD.
BFGTech bundled several adaptors and cables with this video card. There is a single DVI to VGA adaptor and a single DVI to HDMI adaptor. There is also a S/PDIF cable for attaching the video card to your computer's audio adaptor for use with HDMI video and audio. There are 2 power adaptors: a dual Molex to single 6-pin auxiliary adaptor, and a dual 6-pin auxiliary to single 8-pin auxiliary adaptor. Thus, if your power supply does not have an 8-pin connector, but has a surplus of 6-pin connectors, you are covered here. There is also a component video output dongle and a 6-foot HDMI cable.
The Competition
The BFGTech GeForce GTX 280 OCX mainly competes with other GeForce GTX 280 based video cards in terms of performance and price. AMD has not yet released their upcoming ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2, so gamers looking to buy a super-high-end enthusiast class video card today really have only a couple of options. They can buy a GeForce GTX 280 based video card, or they can buy a Radeon HD 4870, but currently the cards are truly in two different classes.
So, for the sake of competition, we are comparing the BFGTech GeForce GTX 280 OCX with a reference-clocked NVIDIA GeForce GTX 280, and a single ATI Radeon HD 4870. Obviously, the GeForce GTX 280 video cards are considerably more expensive than the Radeon HD 4870, and we don't expect the ATI product to seriously compete, but we're including it to show you what performance differences you can expect between NVIDIA's current fastest single-GPU video card, and AMD's current fastest single-GPU video card, price differences notwithstanding.
We will also be comparing performance of the BFGTech GeForce GTX 280 OCX with standard reference GTX 280 clock speeds, to see if the OCX is really worth it. As we're writing this, you can purchase a BFGTech GeForce GTX 280 OCX for $439.99 USD after rebate. A standard GeForce GTX 280 can be had for $409.99 USD after MIR, and an ATI Radeon HD 4870 is available for $274.99 USD with free shipping.