All tests were done with the latest official NVIDIA driver 177.34 for the GTX260. The XFX GTX260 XXX Edition card should come close to the GTX280 card in some cases as it is overclocked in every clock domain compared to the GTX260 reference card, and should beat or match the HD4870 in performance across the board. I did not use the PhysX driver in testing to ensure fairness with the GTX280 cards.

Test System

• XFX GeForce GTX260 video card running 177.34 Forceware drivers
• Intel Core 2 Extreme QX9770 CPU running at 3.2GHz
• 2GB Crucial Ballistix DDR3-2000 memory running at 2000MHz
• EVGA nForce 790i Ultra SLI motherboard running 9.64 Forceware drivers
• 2 74GB WD Raptor SATA HDDs running in RAID 0 Mode
• 900W Rosewill PSU
• Windows Vista with SP1

Tests

DirectX 9.0

• Call of Duty 4 Modern Warfare 1280x1024, 1920x1200 4x AA 16x AF Custom FRAPS walkthrough
• Enemy Territory QuakeWars 1280x1024, 1920x1200 4x AA 16x AF Custom FRAPS walkthrough
• Unreal Tournament 3, 1280x1024, 1920x1200 4x AA 16x AF Custom FRAPS walkthrough
• 3DMark05/06 1280x1024, 1920x1200 no AA no AF, Default score
• PCMark05
• PCMark Vantage
• SpecViewPerf 10

DirectX 10.0

• 3DMark Vantage 1280x1024, 1920x1200 no AA no AF, GPU score
• STALKER 1280x1024, 1920x1200, 4x AA 16x AF Custom FRAPS walkthrough
• Crysis 1280x1024, 1920x1200, 4x AA 16x AF Custom FRAPS walkthrough
• Bioshock 1280x1024, 1920x1200 4x AA 16x AF Custom FRAPS walkthrough
• Lost Planet 1280x1024, 1920x1200 4x AA 16x AF, Performance Timedemo