OC3D Review: XFX 280GTX XXX Edition

w3bbo

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"PhysX has been a failure for AGEIA in the past, can XFX and NVidia conjour up some interest in game physics with the latest XXX edition of the GTX280?"

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Read the full review here.
 
Q. What is innovative about this product?

I don't understand why it was given that award. Decent review, lacking on game benchmarks though :o/
 
No offence intended m8 but did you actually read the review or just skim over it? The review was aimed more towards PhysX, something I don't feel has had enough exposure. I could easily have benched it against a number of other cards which has been done time and time again. We have already reviewed a stock GTX280 so the overclocked 280 would give a predictable increase in scores and make for some pretty bland reading. I did include some benchmarks against other cards at the end to show the 'predictable' outcome so felt little need to emphasize that fact by running it on 6 or 7 titles. I would like to have seen some more benchmarks run on PhysX enabled games but they are few and far between as it is new and INNOVATIVE technology, incorporating PhysX into a GPU.

I just wanted to show some of the benefits other than raw FPS otherwise every review would be the same, which is not what people want to read imo - maybe I'm wrong?
 
Good review, I like the smell of this card.

Thing Mr.Smith may be leaning at with the PhysX aspect is.. well.. the 9800GTX will do the PhysX too, and so on.

%age of "good" games that come out and those games that utilize PhysX isn`t that big a margin. Sure it isn`t wildly touted as it could be, but I`m often surprised to notice the blue spinning lights of the PhysX card come on in games I had no idea used it. In particular users of the UT3 engine, and there have been a few.

I`d buy this card over a 4870x2 whenever presented the choice tbh.
 
I had a little read of this before bed last night. Some of the physics stuff looked good like shooting the cloth.. That was pretty cool. Will have a proper read later though.

One thing I did notice was that on the opening page I think it is when you mention how much it's overclocked from factory stock speeds you only actually mention how much one of the clocks is up by MHz.. You give 11% but I really couldn't be dealing with working it out and had to go find the other review for stock clocks as I couldn't remember (even though I owned one :rolleyes:).

Very small thing and just me being picky :)
 
name='Rastalovich' said:
Good review, I like the smell of this card.

Thing Mr.Smith may be leaning at with the PhysX aspect is.. well.. the 9800GTX will do the PhysX too, and so on.

%age of "good" games that come out and those games that utilize PhysX isn`t that big a margin. Sure it isn`t wildly touted as it could be, but I`m often surprised to notice the blue spinning lights of the PhysX card come on in games I had no idea used it. In particular users of the UT3 engine, and there have been a few.

I`d buy this card over a 4870x2 whenever presented the choice tbh.

The thing is PhysX has not really been touched on in any great detail in graphics cards reviews, at least none that I have read and what better way to try it out than with a flagship card? This is something I thought would be of interest to folk aswell as put a different take on the review rather than stick to the norm. A predicatble review is a boring review that no one wishes to read - hence the emphasis on PhysX which hopefully some folk have found interesting.

name='Bungral' said:
I had a little read of this before bed last night. Some of the physics stuff looked good like shooting the cloth.. That was pretty cool. Will have a proper read later though.

One thing I did notice was that on the opening page I think it is when you mention how much it's overclocked from factory stock speeds you only actually mention how much one of the clocks is up by MHz.. You give 11% but I really couldn't be dealing with working it out and had to go find the other review for stock clocks as I couldn't remember (even though I owned one :rolleyes:).

Very small thing and just me being picky :)

Fixed - cheers m8.
 
hey nice review nice to see something on physx for a change,

btw what is the cover/plastic tab near the 2 power inputs with an speaker icon on it?

(sorry if this was mentioned i just have no idea what it is)
 
name='SuB' said:
hey nice review nice to see something on physx for a change,

btw what is the cover/plastic tab near the 2 power inputs with an speaker icon on it?

(sorry if this was mentioned i just have no idea what it is)

IIRC, thats SP-DIF.

Really not sure though.
 
Its an HDMI audio output.

Cheers for all the constructive criticism guys. After all, a review is only as good as the feedback it receives and if there is anything you would like to see added or omitted in future reviews please let us know.
 
name='teknokid' said:
Nice one :) The card gets slaughtered by the 4870x2 though :(

The 4870x2 has two GPU's though and in Unreal Tournament at least, the GTX280 returns the favour;).

name='k4p84' said:
I've got a couple of vanilla XFX GTX280's turning up in a few days.

Lets see if i can OC them to match :)

Lets hope so - best of luck :)

name='Hassan' said:
Enjoyed every bit. Nice one webbo.
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Cheers m8y.
 
Great review and really interesting from the Physx point of view. :)

I agree about Physx not really offering much to date, but now it really has the potential to take off and that is refreshing to see.

As for the card itself, I can honestly say that if I was to go out and buy one of the Flagship cards today I would without doubt get the 280 on account of it being a single GPU job.
 
Think the emphasis for PhysX in games is going to be bulstered by the fact nVidia has it now.

For so long we`ve see the nVidia logos greeting us each time we load a game, I do feel the same pushing and dev co-operation will lend it`s weight to PhysX.

Give it til Q1 2k9, if the games don`t arrive, then it`ll have failed it`s promotion.
 
If there is one thing NVidia are good at it's marketting. NVidia are invariably bigger than ATI and so will no doubt push the physX onto game developers. I honestly don't expect PhysX to fade like it did with AGEIA.
 
name='Mr. Smith' said:
Q. What is innovative about this product?

I don't understand why it was given that award.

I'm with Mr.Smith on this one.

name='webbo' said:
I just wanted to show some of the benefits other than raw FPS otherwise every review would be the same, which is not what people want to read imo - maybe I'm wrong?

THIS I agree with, the review was excellent and it's great to see something different., nicely done.

BUT the actual product is no more innovative than anything else currently on the market - where's the XFX 280GTX XXX Edition's unique innovative feature above the all the rest of the GPU's out there?
 
I can see what you are saying but afaik NVidia PhysX has not been touched on in any of the other GPU's capable of running it. Sure we have reviewed other GPU's capable of PhysX but the 'innovative' PhysX incorporated in the GPU has not been recognised and therefore was something I wanted to reward with the 'award' - recognition of an innovation that had been missed previously.

Maybe I am missing the point and you don't think that it is innovative that PhysX no longer requires a separate card costing £80+?
 
Big thumbs up from me. I've not read a single review of a 280 that delves into the depths of the PhysX side of life. Its good to see something different and get a bit of an eye opener into something else. It just goes to show that its not a total hammering by ATi when you factor in games that can utilise the PhysX element. I for one shall be basking in the eye candy now possible when i crank up my 280's.:cool:

I can see the point about the innovation award. Its the whole range of 280's that should be awarded it. Not specifically aimed at one card as they all possess the PhysX. Open to interpretation and pernicketyness.;)
 
Nice review mate and I do appreciate the PhysX angle, however I have to agree with what has been said previously about the 'Innovation Award'. If you give it to this card, then you really ought to award it to all GTX 280's in order to be fair across the board.
 
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