Final thoughts
NVIDIA has quietly rolled in the new GeForce GTX 260 that improves performance over and above the present GTX 260 by adding an extra processing cluster - 24 stream processors - to the GPU. The addition of the extra cluster gives it between 5-7.5 per cent extra oomph as gaming tests become bound by the GPU, and helps the card to gain slight leadership over the Radeon HD 4870.
We're a little miffed that clockspeeds weren't also increased in the transition between GTX 260s, but NVIDIA' steadfastedly leaving it up to its glut of partners to launch out-of-the-box overclocked models.
Thinking more of the new GTX 260, a sensible assumption would be that NVIDIA and TSMC - the manufacturing partner - have increased yields such that more GTX 2x0 GPUs are qualified for nine or 10 clusters. Knowing this, it makes sense to roll in a new product at literally no extra cost to the manufacturer.
We've mentioned the naming structure earlier in the review and do so again. The new card is also called GeForce GTX 260, and there will be a reasonable amount of time when both the 'new' 216SP and 'old' 192SP models co-exist. NVIDIA's done something like this in the recent past, with the GeForce 9800 GTX+ supplanting the 9800 GTX.
Unscrupulous vendors may attempt to ride on the new GTX 260 bandwagon and sell old stock for new prices, meaning that the buyer needs to be vigilant and clearly appreciate which technology is being purchased.
The introduction of the more-powerful GTX 260 also means that partners' pre-overclocked old GTX 260 models are rendered pretty much moot; they'll need to shift stock quickly.
Priced at around £199 for a default-clocked model and rising to around £230 for a pre-overclocked card like the BFG, performance is decent enough, we suppose, but such is the attractive pricing for a bone-stock GeForce GTX 280, at around £250, that we'd consider it instead of this BFG.
There's more to buying a graphics card than for just raw power, though, and NVIDIA continued efforts into Cuda and PhysX are beginning to become reasonably compelling reasons to look at the green team's products over ATI's.
Got around £199 to spend on a graphics card that can do more than paint pretty-looking pixels? The 'new' GeForce GTX 260 isn't a bad bet.
HEXUS Awards
The BFG GeForce GTX 260 MAXCORE OCX 896MB receives the HEXUS.labs certification for successfully completing our benchmark suite without issue. This is not an outright recommendation to buy, however.
HEXUS Where2Buy
TBC.
HEXUS Right2Reply
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