Testbed:

Motherboard:
EVGA 680i SLI (Provided by EVGA)

Processor:
Intel Core 2 Duo 6800 Extreme edition (Provided by Intel)

Memory:
OCZ FlexXLC PC2 9200 5-5-5-18  (Provided by OCZ)
        during testing CL5-5-5-15-CR2T 1066MHz at 2.2V

PSU:
OCZ Silencer 750 Quad Black (Provided by OCZ)

Hard disk:
Seagate Barracuda 7200.9 80GB SATA (Provided by Seagate)

CPU-Cooler:
Freezer 7 Pro (Provided by Artic Cooling)

Case Fans:
Artic Cooling - Artic Fan 12 PWM
Artic Cooling - Artic Fan 8 PWM

Vista 32 SP1

Futuremark





3DMark Vantage shows greater performance difference than Mark06. XFX 670M XXX beats Gainward’s reference card by just 6% and easily outperforms HD 4870 by 28%. Mark06 shows only 4% difference between the fastest GTX 280 and Sapphire HD 4870.

EVGA did well with its GTX 260 FTW card running at 666MHz. In Mark06 it even outperformed GTX 280, but it lost in Vantage by 6%. It beat the reference GTX 260 by 10%, and you’ll see this 10% better result in all the games. The battle between reference GTX 260 and Sapphire HD 4870 is inconclusive and the results are very close.

Gaming



Sapphire HD 4870 simply blew it in Company of Heroes and couldn’t beat Nvidia GTX 260. With their overclocked GTX 280, XFX managed to score almost 100% better at 1280x1024 4xAA and 8xAF. Gainward’s reference GTX 280 managed to beat HD 4870 by 90%.

EVGA jumped in with their overclocked GTX 260 card ran 10% better than reference GTX 260 and kept this result until we reached 2048x1536 4xAA 8xAF. Here, EVGA showed that the overclocked core packs significantly more power and beats it by 20%. The same resolution shows HD 4870 running 30% slower.

In Company of Heroes, EVGA GTX 260 FTW scores closer to reference GTX 280 than GTX 260. Geforce 8800 GTX ran nicely but it just can’t cope with the highest tested resolutions. That is a clear indicator that newer cards simply have better technology.



Call of Juarez restores HD 4870’s good name and it holds well versus reference GT280. It even managed to beat it by up to 12%, but it ran on par with XFX 670M. XFX 670M runs up to 11% faster than reference GTX 280.

EVGA GTX 260 FTW follows Gainward’s GTX 280 closely, but it didn’t manage to win against HD 4870. It handled reference GTX 260 nicely so we again see the advantage of about 11%.



Crysis put all the games through their paces, so at 1600x1200 4xAA 8xAF we see enough frames for gaming, but barely anything to brag about. XFX 670M XXX ran the fastest and scored 35fps. It outperformed HD 4870 by 29%, and EVGA GTX 260 FTW by 20%. On the same resolution, EVGA scored a playable framerate whereas we couldn’t say the same for the reference GTX 260. EVGA again outperformed the reference GTX 260 by 11% and HD 4870 by 7%.




The higher the resolution went in F.E.A.R., the more HD 4870 and 8800 GTX lost their breath, so Gainward GTX 280 emerged a winner with a 24% better result than HD 4870. XFX tops that and we see no less than 108 fps at 2048x1536 4xAA 8xAF. That’s 11% better than Gainward and 38% better than HD 4870.

At first two resolutions, RVGA beats GTX 280, but although it’s slower, at other resolutions it lost to GTX 280 by only 4%. It outperformed the reference GTX 260 by 10%-14%, and the HD 4870 by up to 19%.



Much like the previous game, the highest tested resolution sees GTX 280 winning the test. This time Gainward beats Radeon HD 4870 by about 23%, whereas XFX topped that and beat it by about 29%. Like many times before, XFX GTX 280 670M XXX shows that overclocking brings significant performance increase, but this time it beats reference Gainward GTX 280 by 5%.

Overclocking did well for GTX 260 too, and EVGA decided to overclock it to 666MHz. All the test show 10% better performance compared to reference GTX 260 card running at 576MHz. 8800 GTX is no longer a feared adversary, but it still scores nicely.



At 16x12 sa AA i AF, GTX 280 scores 24% better than HD 4870, but at 2048x1536 that number sinks to 13%. XFX GTX 280 670M shows it’s the performance king on higher resolutions so it beats Gainward by almost 12% and Radeon HD 4870 by almost 27%.

EVGA did well and outperformed HD 4870 car, but it wasn’t much slower than GTX 280. It beat the reference GTX 260 by 12%, and we see the same happening in World in Conflict.




 

 

Conclusion

EVGA did a great job overclocking the GTX 260 card. They named it FTW (For The Win) and clocked it to relatively high 666MHz. Shaders on this card run at 1404MHz and the memory at 1107MHz.

We’ve seen that in average, this card scores 10% better than reference cards. EVGA GTX 260 FTW is a GT200 based card with 192 stram processors and 896MB of GDDR3 memory, which makes it one of the best cards on the market. GTX 280 is, of course, better, but it will also set you back €100 extra, whereas EVGA’s overclocked GTX 260 FTW performs close to reference GTX 280.

If you want to treat yourself to some GT200 goodness, and can’t afford GTX 280, EVGA GTX 260 FTW is a great choice and certainly the fastest GTX 260 card on the market.