BFG GeForce GTX 280 OC
The physical manifestation of the beast from Santa Clara.
Hold on, guvnor, that's a GeForce 9800 GTX, right?
Not quite, but BFG's card does bear a striking resemblance to its single-GPU 9800 GTX SKU.
In fact, take a look at the comparison shot for visual verification:
The cooler is a little different, though. The card weighs a chunky 914g, so it's not quite as portly as the 1,150g GeForce 9800 GX2 or 1,037g ATI Radeon HD 3870 X2.
Measuring in at 268(w) x110(h) x38(d)mm, the usual caveats apply with respect to positioning it into small-ish chassis.
Like the GeForce 9800 GX2, the PCB is enclosed - you can't get to the innards without removing the shroud.
The two SLI 'golden fingers' are located, as we look at it, on the right-hand side: three-way SLI goodness.
NVIDIA's engineers have done an excellent job with the cooler and that's why all AIBs will follow it for the initial batch of cards. But expect to see custom-designed solutions, including the inevitable water-cooling, in a few weeks' time.
BFG's overclocked model ships with 615/1,350/2,214MHz frequencies compared with the 602/1,296/2,214MHz stipulated by the reference design. Not much, granted, but it should provide a few extra fps at 2,560x1,600.
For a GPU that can pull almost a quarter of a kilowatt, the fan barely spins up under load.
The use of eight-pin and six-pin PCIe connectors is mandatory on the GTX 280. The GTX 260 gets away with two six-pin connectors.
NVIDIA recommends a 550W PSU if you're running a single GTX 280 card. Expect to see a raft of PSUs being marketed as certified for use with the GTX 260 and 280.
A little to the left of the power connectors is the S/PDIF-input, just as we've seen on the GeForce 9800 GX2 in the recent past. You connect the output from the motherboard or soundcard output through this and then use a DVI-to-HDMI adapter on the back. Not as good as ATI's passthrough, however.
The twin SLI connectors mean that you'll need an overdraft, along with a PSU that's capable of delivering oodles of clean 12V power.
Grrrr!
Nothing extraordinary in the outputs. Twin dual-link DVI is commonplace. At least you can drive gaming on two monitors, unlike the output-limited, SLI'd 9800 GX2.
The twin-slot-taking BFG GeForce GTX 280 OC, while undoubtedly big, isn't quite the physical monster that some were anticipating.
