After being caught cold by the launch of AMD's Radeon HD 4800 series parts, recent months have seen NVIDIA trying to work their way back into a competitive position at the high-end via price cuts, driver updates, and a refresh to their GeForce GTX 260 SKU to enable more Stream Processors, in the process creating the so-called "Core 216" part. It's just such a graphics board we're taking a look at today, given a further spin by XFX in their usual fashion thanks to some impressive factory clock speed increases to match the board's "Black Edition" moniker.





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Your review came at a good time.

Right now at Newegg this card is $330 - $50 instant savings - 15% by paying with PayPal ($42) - $30 MIR = $208 AR. Shipping is free.

The 15% off by paying with PayPal is TODAY ONLY so if you want a card which approaches stock GTX 280 speeds for $200 you should jump on it NOW NOW NOW.

Link to card: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6814150330

You have to be crazy to go with a XFX right now. I would go with BFG or eVGA due to their 90-day upgrade policy. Considering the new 55nm cards will be out in February. Just something to consider.

I'm curious, what's going on with GRID for the "reference" GTX 260? The minimum frame rate is just messed up vs. the XFX offering. I actually was shocked to see the 4870 outpace in the minimum frame rate vs the GTX 260. Everyone says that the AMD cards have bigger swings from low to high. But not in your review

I agree, anyone buying this card would have to be crazy when they could pay the same price for a slower EVGA model or £20+ more for a slower BFG... It mystifies me why they'd do it...

Brand loyalty/ignorance?

Please tell me what brand loyalty has to do with anything? BFG and eVGA right now have the best policy going with their 90-day upgrade offer. To just skip over that is the ignorant part. Plus you mention about paying less for an overclocked card? Not seeing that anywhere. Factory overclocked cards cost more then the reference offerings. So no sure what's that about.

lol! I guess that 90-day upgrade policy sucks. I hate it when companies try to help you out when a new card might be coming out in 90 days. Damn it!!! Why are companies so damn generous. Pisses me off!

XFX Black Edition = $279.99
eVGA = $247.99
BFG = $254.99

So you rather pay MORE! for a company to overclock a card for you? Heh. All prices are from Newegg...

Fanboys.

Also, if some people have had a bad experience with a company or range of products, they may ignore them regardless of how attractive prices/features are.

I fail to see anything I said results in a fanboy / loyalty to a company? All GTX 260's are reference samples. So you start to look at what they offer in terms of warranty, pack-in's, etc... I fail to see what fanboy has to do with recognizing the 90-day upgrade from BFG or eVGA? I guess to each their own. If recognizing something positive results in a fanboy shout out, then I have no response to something like that. Very odd.

The 90-day upgrade system from those AIBs is great, although you have to ask yourself two questions before plunging into it:

- Am I willing to go several weeks without a graphics board during the step-up process?
- Am I willing to pay more than I would for a single card, rather than wait for another month or two and simply buy what I actually want?

Let's take a look at BFG's trade-up policy... You have 100 calendar days. I personally prefer the idea of not buying parts that would require upgrading 100 days later... Next up, from BFG's site "we’ll send email to confirm the price you will need to pay", so you have to pay for it. Suddenly this "trade-up" sounds more like part-exchange to me... Next up, again from BFG's site "BFG receives, tests, and visually inspects the graphics card you sent in. If approved, you’ll be sent an email with a coupon code to use towards your Trade Up purchase on the BFG store. If the application is denied, BFG will contact you to explain why before shipping the rejected graphics card back to you." So this trade-up consists of being sent a coupon, that's if your application is even accepted. I'm trying to think why someone would go through this cobblers rather than simply flog the old card on ebay or something and use that money to put towards a new one... There's also no mention of how long this procedure of sending your old card, testing, re-purchasing with this coupon and receiving your new card will take. How long is someone supposed to wait for this? For anyone's reference, http://www.bfgtech.com/tradeupprogram.aspx

So let's see if EVGA is any better... Here you only have 90 calendar days, so it's not looking good compared to BFG's extreme generosity of giving you 100. Despite the claim that's free, EVGA go on to say in the same section that you have to pay the difference between the you current cards' MSRP and the new cards' MSRP. Oh plus additional tax and shipping. Given that just about every online retailer sells below MSRP this is far from extreme generosity. They also only do it once, you can't continually upgrade cards through this service. Again, this is simply part-exchange, and again no mention of a timeframe for how long you're without a graphics card and in the case of many, without a PC as a consiquence. Reference for this is at http://www.evga-europe.com/evga-step-up-pricing.html

And to cover the final point, here's a link to Scan's entire GTX 260 216 stock:

http://www.scan.co.uk/Index.aspx?NT=1-0-17-588-0

Note that the only card cheaper than the XFX Black edition is the XFX stock card. So in answer to the question "So you rather pay MORE! for a company to overclock a card for you?", the answer is nah, not really. I don't mind saving money by buying a stock model, but i don't fancy paying more for a card that's either no different to the Black edition, or not as good.

NEXT...

I think you're mis-understanding the point of the upgrade policy they have in place. Name one other company that will give you full retail MSRP price of a used card toward a newer offering? From what I read, you seem to be miffed that you have to pay, "more" for the new card. I don't understand that part as any new card will cost more then it's predecessor. So that's a no-brainer there. Second, I rather have the "option" then not. Once again you say to off your card on eBay. That's another alternative, but there is no way you're going to get full retail MSRP price for that card after 2 months of use on eBay. Simply no way.

So why did I go with eVGA? For the simple fact I needed a card for this month to the yearly LAN. I know have the option to upgrade in Jan/Feb to get the latest card. Will I have to pay an additional cost? Absolutely. Will it be more money then offing the card on eBay, 10 out of 10 times the answer will be yes. Interesting how XFX is cheaper in the U.K. then in the states, it's usually the pre-overclocked cards cost you more. So in your country your purchasing decision's are different.

But you seem to not get that most of these cards are all reference. You're paying for a pretty box with stickers and the usual case of a pack-in game. Remove that and you have to look at their warranty's and policy's as the next step in a purchase. Hell you do that with ANY purchase of a product. This fanboy stuff is just ridiculous to call out. It makes absolutely no sense in this case. Basically you would be calling out 99% of the people out there fanboys if they resorted to warranty's and policy's for purchasing decisions.

To answer Hanners, Yes it sucks to have to wait. It's part of the process. You would have to wait if your card borked or fried in any warranty system as well. The 2nd one is a Yes because of my situation. I'm running a 8600 and I need a faster card before Dec 26th.

I somehow doubt that any company will be offering a trade-up from a 65 nanometre to a 55 nanometre GeForce GTX 260 though, assuming the current thinking is correct and they'll be silently upgrading GPUs without changing the SKU name at all.

Someone showed a Protoc card or whatever the name of that company. It showed 260 with a 2 on the top right of the 0. A lot of people are banking on it, they will be all pissed otherwise! lol

So what is the huge advantage of getting the shrunk gpu? Seems any power savings may be offset by the cost of trading up. I can't see nvidia keeping the same names, but making them faster, but gpu naming schemes have fooled me before.