NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 280 gets cracked open and reviewed

It's not all that often we see a video card get dissected, but it's also not very often that we see a card with as much hardware as NVIDIA's new top-end GeForce GTX 280, which proved to be enough to get the folks at Custom PC to crack one open for a looksee. As you can see above, after removing more than a few screws, they were able to take a peak at the card's lone, massive GPU, which not surprisingly produces enough heat to require the huge cooler and heat sink that conceals it. Of course, they also put the card through its paces and, while they did find that it's bar-none the fast single GPU card out there, the performance compared to a GeForce 9800 GX2 makes the situation a bit murkier, especially given the GTX 280's hefty price tag and lofty system requirements. That apparently wasn't enough to keep it from getting their seal of approval, however, with it earning a more than respectable 84% rating.

Read - Custom PC, "Taking apart the GeForce GTX 280"
Read - Custom PC, GeForce GTX 280 Review

[Logan @ Jun 16th 2008 4:45PM]

board comes with disclaimer: nvidia fan boys only

[Rafer @ Jun 16th 2008 4:56PM]

I thought they were doing away with random cool sounding letter combinations at the end of the card name?

[R. Kelly Is Innocent; Justice: Served @ Jun 16th 2008 5:08PM]

I bet this is a really good computer! Look at all those screws!

[Cunthor @ Jun 16th 2008 5:15PM]

Crysis - High Settings, 1920x1200 4xAA @ 29fps-24fps


All we needed to know :)

[Noir @ Jun 16th 2008 6:42PM]

Not good enough I'm afraid..

I'll be waiting till I can run Crysis @ 60fps

[Cunthor @ Jun 16th 2008 7:03PM]

@ Noir

Call me when you can do that under 470 Euros.

[Noir @ Jun 16th 2008 7:17PM]

Will do my man,

I'll be waiting till 2011 until Intel releases their Vector Engine

[nerdtalker @ Jun 16th 2008 8:23PM]

@Rafer, the GT in GTX refers to Graphics Tesla.

The chip is codenamed GT200, therefore GT is Graphics Tesla, and 200 refers to it's status as the second generation Tesla Graphics architecture.

And by the way, technically they did "do away with random cool sounding letter combinations at the end of the card name," seeing as it's the GeForce GTX 280 and not the GeForce 280 GTX. ;)

[Zorque @ Jun 16th 2008 4:47PM]

That GPU looks like it's even bigger than a Pentium 3.

[Hamidxa @ Jun 16th 2008 4:51PM]

1.4 Billion transistors of pure processing power.

Off-topic, the GTX 280 is unreasonably priced considering that for $250 less, you can get the 260 variant which only comes at the expense of about a 10% performance delta.

It will still be interesting to see how the R700 does in terms of price/performance ratio compared to these cards.


(Oh, and the obligatory Apple fanboy who doesn't know any better response: "Will this work on my MacBook Air?"

You gotta love 'em :) )

[Kurian @ Jun 16th 2008 5:08PM]

Its 5 times bigger than a quad core Penryn!

[Andir3.0 @ Jun 16th 2008 5:18PM]

Which brings me to the question... when will we step beyond the current motherboard with processor/memory and use a high speed buss with upgradeable components like processing cards that you simply plug in. (Kind of like blade servers) so people can decide if they want 8 processor boards or 6 GPUs and 2 CPUs?

[Lamerz @ Jun 16th 2008 7:05PM]

@Andir3.0

Yeah, upgradeable systems... You mean like the PCI-Express bus, with processing cards like video cards that we just plug in, with options ranging from 1-4 GPUs?? Or like the CPU socket where we plug in a CPU with 1-4 cores per socket??

[Andir3.0 @ Jun 16th 2008 7:34PM]

I mean like a motherboard with a bunch of slots, you can choose to put in CPUs or GPUs in whatever configuration you like in whatever slot you like. They would all communicate on the same ultra fast buss. You could possibly even include Memory risers if the need called. It would be like putting a new CPU in your PCI-Express slot instead of a video card. The buss speeds would have to increase of course and the slots might be longer, but the boards would not be tied to a particular brand of CPU like it is today. You could buy an AMD and place it alongside an Intel.

Oh, and don't be an ass. ;)

[bsm0f0 @ Jun 16th 2008 4:49PM]

wtf. since when did video cards = trying to cram a foot long radiator into my mini tower?

Yes, size does matter ...

[Hamidxa @ Jun 16th 2008 4:54PM]

Minitower....there's your problem.

What do you expect.

Gamers usually have more beefy cases than minitowers.
A minitower is all good and well if you were a Mac user and you wanted to run Quake 3 on your shiny new Radeon X1900, but this is a man's card and demands at the very least a Mid-Tower with enough space to let this thing breathe properly.

[Forrest @ Jun 16th 2008 5:17PM]

LOL, "a man's card"

I know a girl or two that would be more than a little wet over this card.

[j_g_puff @ Jun 16th 2008 5:38PM]

Forrest:

Can you, er, introduce me? Do you think my FX 5200 would cause moistness? It's got 256MB ram...

[teej @ Jun 17th 2008 1:09PM]

@Forrest,

you know some ugly girls

[OneLove @ Jun 16th 2008 4:56PM]

The girls all say my GPU is huge.

[Low Ranked @ Jun 16th 2008 5:08PM]

Theres nothing to brag about when girls are talking about your Gross Putrid Underwear.

[Thi mam(kris120890) @ Jun 16th 2008 5:11PM]

Can if they're kinky.

[Chris @ Jun 16th 2008 4:56PM]

CAN'T WAIT TO ORDER MINE TOMORROW, CRYSIS HERE I COME!
(please don't vote me down, I've been waiting for this ever since I could barely play Crysis on my current system)

[Dan @ Jun 16th 2008 4:58PM]

Nvidia is popping too many cards out too fast, already we're passing the 9k series... and they didnt even become as well known with only like 2-3 months of being on the market or something..

If Sony and MS that did that with consoles they would og out of business.

Nvidia is losing their grip on its own business and need to simply work on a new gpu for a few months and perfect to the point that it could handle anything for the next 9 months - 1 and a half and then pc gaming wouldnt be at the point of dying.

All this crap about a new card every month is whats really killing the market..

[Hamidxa @ Jun 16th 2008 5:06PM]

PC gaming is not dying, that is a fallacy that is perpetuated by sensationalistic console fanboys who simply dont know any better.

In fact, PC gaming as a platform, when compared to any one single console (not all 6 or 7 combined) on its own, does better than arguably any one of them in terms of profits and sales volume.

"PC accounts for 30% ($2.76B) of US gaming marked and is projected to grow 14% this year"
http://www.pcgamingalliance.org/en/index.asp

Furthermore, in terms of online sales/distribution, the PC slaughters consoles, and that's what people fail to see.

All they go by is NPD data which doesnt track online sales.
Services such as Steam for example accounted for over 15 MILLION subsribers purchasing games through them within the last couple of years alone.

That my friend is a figure that just up until recently eclipsed the entirety of the X360 user base, and still does eclipse the entire PS3 user base, to put things in perspective.

[Low Ranked @ Jun 16th 2008 5:10PM]

I ain't perpetuatin' any fallacies.

Sincerely,
Sensationalistic Console-Fanboy

[Dan @ Jun 16th 2008 5:19PM]

And yet it still doesnt change the fact that Nvidia is crapping out cards like nothing. They've been getting bigger and more power hungry by the series.. You can't possibly tell me they are improving in that area.

That card looks like it'll break my pci slot if I don't chain it to the top of my case.

[Hamidxa @ Jun 16th 2008 5:28PM]

Dan,

You don't like it, don't buy it.

It's as simple as that.

The PC is all about choice.

[Dan @ Jun 16th 2008 5:50PM]

Do you seriously want a cookie? Because your trolling on my post is annoying with you defending the pc genre when we are talking about nvidia and its crappy standards.

I am a nvidia user for life but they need to get their shit together, and yooou need to go crap somewhere else guy. ^_^

[Mark Anderson @ Jun 16th 2008 6:00PM]

Ah, nVidia and their evil, evil drivers.

Ugh.

[OneLove @ Jun 16th 2008 6:41PM]

Thats how they get the early adopters $$. :)

[ChuChu @ Jun 16th 2008 7:05PM]

As far as I know Nvidia has multiple teams working to push out the next product cycle at the same time. It's why they can manage to pull off such aggressive release cycles. It's a pretty impressive logistical/engineering feat if you think about it.

Why anyone could complain about too many releases is beyond me though. More releases = more competition = faster price drops for older boards.

[Timothy Sottek @ Jun 17th 2008 10:53AM]

Dan,

I don't see how more choice hurts the consumer. Nobody is forced right now to buy a GTX 280 to play PC games.

If this new generation drops the price of the powerful 9 series, then its all the better for PC builders. It seems an arbitrary standard that new cards must be 2x or 4x or 8x more powerful than a previous "generation."

What counts more than anything is the price/performance ratio. So if the 9 series drops in price due to this release, consumers win. Furthermore, the 9 series has been shown to handle almost every existing game adeptly.

I fail to see how nVIDIA is hurting themselves by pushing their own technology forward.

[Thi mam(kris120890) @ Jun 16th 2008 4:59PM]

From what i've heard these are only slightly better than the 9800 GX2 but with more requirements. Probably better to wait for the ati versions before deciding. Btw do these come with ageia physix built in.

[GenBanks @ Jun 16th 2008 6:16PM]

Why the heck did he get voted down?? All the reviews point out that the 9800gx2 often matches the GTX 280's performance for less money.

[kal326 @ Jun 16th 2008 5:04PM]

I think I've seen a chip that size before, except it said Intel 486DX on it.

[Andir3.0 @ Jun 16th 2008 5:22PM]

486 cores were actually quite a bit smaller in general. :p

It boils down to contact surface. I have an old 286 that is about the size of a quarter. It didn't need a lot of pins so it didn't require the bigger sockets of today's processors.

[bartoron @ Jun 16th 2008 5:05PM]

But now it can't play Crysis! :(

[Hamidxa @ Jun 16th 2008 5:08PM]

A review/preview over at Rage3D

http://www.rage3d.com/previews/video/nvg2xx/

A single GTX 260 is only $400 MSRP and is a better deal than a 9800 GX2.

[someguy @ Jun 16th 2008 6:14PM]

GT200 price gouge insanity

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=191373

[Jon Doe. @ Jun 16th 2008 5:11PM]

Looks like a damn RAID controller. Why is it that Intel, AMD are heading for more efficient chips and NVIDIA just stuffs more power consuming, heat generating beasts in their designs.....*shrugs* Whatever.

[Andir3.0 @ Jun 16th 2008 5:25PM]

Competition for one. ATI isn't offering anything cooler to compete so nVidia is getting away with just slamming bigger and more power hungry chips on the board.

Intel, AMD, and don't forget Via also have an increasingly smaller market to look at as well with laptops/media PCs. If they can keep their cost down by using the same (similar) chips in the laptops as they do in desktops, they can compete better.

[Don @ Jun 16th 2008 5:30PM]

Looks like my old Nokia 5160 cellphone after I took it apart

[Joseph @ Jun 16th 2008 6:10PM]

"it's absolutely massive"
...that's what she said.

someone had to do it. If this doesn't make sense, RTFA and WTFV

[happy_penguin @ Jun 16th 2008 6:17PM]

Yeowch that thing is a monster!

[maff @ Jun 16th 2008 6:40PM]

the picture looks like a jawa robot storage unit

[Some Kid @ Jun 16th 2008 6:41PM]

how did they go from a break on this card this morning to getting it by this afternoon?
anywho
since when did they put an entire computer inside a graphics card?
this would blow anything away from up to about 5 years ago
without the graphics
i say put a C2D variant on this thing as the core and place som MRAm on the thing and you got yourself a power hungry, tiny, awesome computer
oh and a SSD- they are small enough to fit in the crevices
All for about $2000
Its a start?!?!?!?

[Lamerz @ Jun 16th 2008 7:06PM]

She hugged me and said, "Is that a GTX 280 in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?"

[Ian @ Jun 16th 2008 7:36PM]

more then a few screws? i count 25(could be wrong) thats a freaking ton considering i know computer cases that have 3.

[Low Ranked @ Jun 16th 2008 7:56PM]

Read: Toolless Computer Case.