Step up - 260 or 280?

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memnoch_thedevil

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Jun 3, 2008
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So I have 8 days left on my EVGA step-up, and was just wondering which card I should upgrade to.

The 260 = $52 to upgrade
The 280 = $202 to upgrade

any real advantage to spend $150 for the 280?

I just built my pc about 2 and a half months ago, but already feeling like I should have held out for a few more months (Q9550, 4870x2, x48 mobo etc...), but that's just the guy in me wanting new, shinier, faster toys lol.

I will probably just wait until tax time next year and do some real upgrades and maybe even just build new again, so with a P35 board, a single card is my solution for now, and I think the 260 would probably be enough to tide me over for a few months.

So any thoughts and suggestions are welcomed.

Thanks,

memnoch
 
I have a vanilla 260 and have OC'd the crap out of it easily. It is running well past stock 280 levels. Killer bang for the buck. BUT it's your money. I got the eVGA 260 5 days ago, so I'll have til mid-October to step up then.
 
Brahmzy said:
I have a vanilla 260 and have OC'd the crap out of it easily. It is running well past stock 280 levels. Killer bang for the buck. BUT it's your money. I got the eVGA 260 5 days ago, so I'll have til mid-October to step up then.
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well overclocking your 260 past 280 stock speeds really doesnt mean much since thats only 25mhz.
 
I think he meant that he is running well past stock gtx performance level, I am running my gtx 260 at 703/1480/1100, and it is beating every gtx 280 benchmark at stock clocks, but than agian you can overclock the gtx 280 too, but 150 dollar premium seems to not be worth it, but I am going to trade up to gtx 280 when the prices go even further down. I am sure they might go down to 399 when the hd 4870 x2 comes out. I believe the manufacturing process only gets better overtime, even if it is not 55nm, but I think that might be out before my 100 days are up to tradeup.
 
NKD said:
I think he meant that he is running well past stock gtx performance level, I am running my gtx 260 at 703/1480/1100, and it is beating every gtx 280 benchmark at stock clocks, but than agian you can overclock the gtx 280 too, but 150 dollar premium seems to not be worth it, but I am going to trade up to gtx 280 when the prices go even further down. I am sure they might go down to 399 when the hd 4870 x2 comes out. I believe the manufacturing process only gets better overtime, even if it is not 55nm, but I think that might be out before my 100 days are up to tradeup.
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that really doest add up. even with your shaders and memory at those speeds it would have less shading power and memory bandwidth.
 
I'm at 715/1435/1225. This is well past the performance of a stock 280. There are multiple benchmarks out there showing similar 260 OCs showing higher FPS than the stock 280's. Google it dude. What's so hard to believe?
 
Brahmzy said:
I'm at 715/1435/1225. This is well past the performance of a stock 280. There are multiple benchmarks out there showing similar 260 OCs showing higher FPS than the stock 280's. Google it dude. What's so hard to believe?
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well doing the math it doesnt add up. the core speed speed would probably help in some instances but your/his shaders being at that speed dont make up for the fact that you have 48 less SP. also his memory at 2200 effective is still on the 448bit bus as opposed the 512bit bus. now do you get it what I am saying?
 
cannondale06 said:
well doing the math it doesnt add up. the core speed speed would probably help in some instances but your/his shaders being at that speed dont make up for the fact that you have 48 less SP. also his memory at 2200 effective is still on the 448bit bus as opposed the 512bit bus. now do you get it what I am saying?
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Perhaps the core is the bottleneck then for both the GTX 260 and 280.
 
now back to helping this dude pick a card. Im still running on this 8800gtx so unfortunately i cant tell you to grab the 260 from experience. But from what im reading the 260 is your best bet. Grab that overclock it and if you can (not sure of you can do this) step it up again for the 280 in a couple of months.
 
ezac said:
now back to helping this dude pick a card. Im still running on this 8800gtx so unfortunately i cant tell you to grab the 260 from experience. But from what im reading the 260 is your best bet. Grab that overclock it and if you can (not sure of you can do this) step it up again for the 280 in a couple of months.
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Well from what I understand, you can only step up once...I already have the 8800GTS KO, and am looking to step that up to either the 260 or the 280.

Overclocking is not a problem as I have already oc'd the 8800 to 780/1050.

From what it seems though the 260 would be a better upgrade as it is only $52 to upgrade instead of $202...especially if I can get stock 280 results with a modest oc.
 
This depend on what resolution do you play ? If it's 1680x1050, a GTX 260 is sufficient.

 
ezac said:
now back to helping this dude pick a card. Im still running on this 8800gtx so unfortunately i cant tell you to grab the 260 from experience. But from what im reading the 260 is your best bet. Grab that overclock it and if you can (not sure of you can do this) step it up again for the 280 in a couple of months.
Click to expand...

I just came from an 8800GTX to a heavily OC'd 260 and all I can say is WOW. I play at 1920x1200 and I'm am thrilled at the performance differences between the cards.. Night n day.
 
yup I can actually run it at 729/1533 and it passes ati tool without any reason, but I ran in to stability in games, I do not know why, because i get no artifacts and it would be 10 mins or an hour before it freezes at that speed, but at 702/1479 I have had no issues, so I think it might be my antec true power but I kinda doubt that or the shaders need to be kept cooler at those speeds. but there was minimum difference in performance from 1479 to 1534 shader speed, it actually comes close to 9800gtx sli at those speeds in some games.
 
memnoch_thedevil said:
Well from what I understand, you can only step up once...I already have the 8800GTS KO, and am looking to step that up to either the 260 or the 280.

Overclocking is not a problem as I have already oc'd the 8800 to 780/1050.

From what it seems though the 260 would be a better upgrade as it is only $52 to upgrade instead of $202...especially if I can get stock 280 results with a modest oc.
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dude.....for $52 do it!
 
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