![[H]ardOCP](/images/blank.gif){kind=small}
- Date:
- Tuesday , September 16, 2008
- Author:
- Mark Warner
- Editor:
- Brent Justice
- Google +1
BFGTech GeForce GTX 260 OCX MAXCORE
Today, BFGTech is launching its new and improved GeForce GTX 260 GPU based video cards. The new GeForce GTX 260 GPU benefits from 24 more stream processors, but maintains the same clocks. BFGTech has ramped up the clock speeds in OCX fashion. We evaluate and compare to the original GTX 260 GPU and a Radeon HD 4870.
Apples-to-Apples
New GTX 260 vs. Old GTX 260
Clock for Clock
First we’re going to answer the question of whether or not this new GeForce GTX 260 GPU performs any better than the old GTX 260. To do that, we're going to put it through some Apples-to-Apples tests. We're going to use Age of Conan, Call of Duty 4, and GRID for this segment of testing, and we'll be testing on the BFGTech GeForce GTX 260 OCX MAXCORE, the new NVIDIA GeForce GTX 260 at stock speeds, and the original NVIDIA GeForce GTX 260 at stock speeds. We will downclock the MAXCORE in order to achieve NVIDIA stock “new” GTX 260 clock speeds, this way we will be comparing the new to the old clock-for-clock.
Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures
In Age of Conan at 2560x1600 with 8X MSAA, there is absolutely no difference in performance between these three video cards. This suggests that performance in this game is limited by a factor other than shader power at these settings.
At this test we are using 1600x1200 with AA disabled, and finally we saw the different GeForce GTX 260 models set themselves apart. The overclocked BFGTech GeForce GTX 260 OCX MAXCORE outperformed the older GeForce GT 260 design by about 17%, and the standard clocked new GTX 260 by about 9%. That the performance gap only widens at lower resolutions with AA disabled also suggests that Conan's performance is limited by something other than the video card's shader power.
Call of Duty 4: Modern Combat
In Call of Duty 4, we finally see the added shader performance on the new GTX 260 GPU show its advantage. At 2560x1600 with 4X MSAA, the overclocked BFGTech GeForce GTX 260 OCX MAXCORE outperforms the old GTX 260 by 22.7%, and the reference-clocked “new” GTX 260 by 9.4%.
Race Driver: GRID
In GRID, the new GTX 260 and the BFGTech GeForce GTX 260 OCX MAXCORE again show improved performance. The BFGTech video card is 18.7% faster on average than the original GTX 260, and the new GeForce GTX 260 outperforms the original design by about 5%.
S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Clear Sky
Please note that this comparison is not meant to be final in any way, regarding these video cards' performance in S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Clear Sky. We have had this game about as long as most of you out there: just a few hours. This test is literally a clean install where we jumped in the game, set the resolution to 1920x1200, selected the "Medium" graphics settings option, and started a new game. We then walked around the introductory area for about 5 minutes, recording our framerates as we wandered both indoors and outdoors. We started the FRAPS recording just as soon as we landed in the in-engine rendered world, right after the introductory movie ended.
This is a very preliminary glance at this brand new game. We have a much more comprehensive S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Clear Sky article coming soon.
Just like in our GRID test above, there is a clear delineation between these 3 video cards. The BFGTech GeForce GTX 260 OCX MAXCORE averaged about 21% faster than the 192-shader GeForce GTX 260, and about 14% faster than the non overclocked 216-shader new GeForce GTX 260.
Obviously, the Medium spec is not playable on any of these video cards. We are certainly aware of the alleged performance advantages seen by AMD's GPUs in this game, and you can rest assured that we will be paying very close attention to the performance of the Radeon HD 4000 series in this "The Way It's Meant To Be Played" title.