I am tempted to upgrade my card here soon, as SLi has been an amazing pain in the ass and I'd just as soon have one card. Based on my resolution (1680x1050) and my specs, which card would be better for me? Would I ever actually tap the 280?
Depends on a couple of things, how high quality settings you use and how long you intend to keep the card. In most cuurent games (minus Crysis) with decent levels of aa/af you'll probably be fine with a gtx 260 at that resolution, but with quite a few more demanding games soon to be released and the fact that you will not see any performance increase from your current system if you get a gtx 260, I would say a gtx 280 is probably the better option.
I just upgraded from my 8800gt to a GTX260 and finally played through Crysis at 1680x1050 with it on very high settings. It ran it like a champ and was smooth all the way to the end. Sure I would have liked to run it at 1920x1200 but I figured that the poor coding of the game was the reason I couldn't more than the card. I have a GTX280 coming this week and honestly the only reason I am not sticking with the GTX260 is because of my resolution. If I had a monitor that maxed out at 1680x1050 I don't think I would hesitate to stick with the 260. Even Far Cry 2 should run fine on it with everything maxed. Keith
Why would you spend all that money on a card that has a possible 40% failure rate? If it fails you will only receive another defective card with the same issue. I highly suggest not purchasing Nvidia for another few months until they fix their bumping issue. Nvidia will release a new card most likely this fall/winter that will have the bumping issue fixed. I say consider the ATI 4800 series card if you want minimal problems.
wait for a refreshed 260+ or whatever the name, i think i'll grab one too when it hits the streets, lol or there might be a better faster option then, better than 280gtx or the new 260gtx+ (aprox. 2-3 months time ^^)
Yeah,i'd say wait aswell unless you must have it now,if you buy an EVGA or BFG card you can use the step-up (90day EVGA-100day BFG)when the new revision comes out. As for the bumping issue (2d/3d mode clocking) if thats what your talking about,i had the same problem with mine not downclocking some of the time,the 177.92 drivers fixed my issues.The 4800 series are having alot of problems of their own,be it hardware and software.
im pretty dissapointed, but i think my PSU and CPU are very very bottlenecking this card, and maybe also my 8800GTX, offtopic: if i upgrade my CPU to Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 with STANDARD clocks, will i run crysis smoothly in all lvls? at most times is good enough too, the first level runs like a charm, but the other lvls 14-21fps..
I went from a 8800 GT To a GTX 280. Since I run 1920X1080 in games the performance increase was big. The extra ram, shader cores and so on were nice. I don't regret dropping $400 on this thing.
What was your actual increase from your GT? 10fps? 20fps? I game at 1920x1200 so I will be upgrading sometime.
I am looking for a new VGA card, one that can handle 1900 x 1200 very well without the need to pray to god.
I agree with others GTX260+ would be the way to go at your rez. But yea if money is not a problem GTX280+ all the way, but with the problems ppl seam to have, I for sure would wait on 55nm ones.
What is the "Bumping Issue"? This 260 sure runs a lot cooler than my 8800GT. Full load my 8800 ran at 83C while this 260 runs about 60C at full load and that's with it OC to OC2 settings.
HD 4870 is the best choice imo. Better AA performance than the GTX 260, on a par with the 280 in some games.
go to the link below if you want full detail on Nvidia's issue with bumping and the massive 40% failure rate of some cards. http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/news/2008/09/01/why-nvidia-chips-defective
