NVIDIA's 1.4 Billion Transistor GPU: GT200 Arrives as the GeForce GTX 280 & 260
by Anand Lal Shimpi & Derek Wilson on June 16, 2008 9:00 AM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
SLI Performance Throwdown: GTX 280 SLI vs. 9800 GX2 Quad SLI
We had two GeForce GTX 280s on hand and a plethora of SLI bridges, so we of course had to run them in SLI. Now remember that a single GTX 280 uses more power than a GeForce 9800 GX2, and thus two of them is going to use a lot of power. It was so much power in fact that our OCZ EliteXStream 1000W power supply wasn't enough. While the SLI system would boot and get into Windows, we couldn't actually complete any benchmarks. All of the power supplies on the GTX 280 SLI certified list are at least 1200W units. We didn't have any on hand so we had to rig up a second system with a separate power supply and used the second PSU to power the extra GTX 280 card. A 3-way SLI setup using GTX 280s may end up requiring a power supply that can draw more power than most household circuits can provide.
Although a single GeForce GTX 280 loses to a GeForce 9800 GX2 in most cases, scaling from two to four GPUs is never as good as scaling from one to two. Thus forcing the question: are a pair of GTX 280s in SLI faster than a 9800 GX2 Quad SLI setup?
Let's look at the performance improvements from one to two cards across our games:
| GTX 280 SLI (Improvement from 1 to 2 cards) | 9800 GX2 SLI (Improvement from 1 to 2 cards) |
|
| Crysis | 50.1% | 30.3% |
| Call of Duty 4 | 62.8% | 64.0% |
| Assassin's Creed | 38.9% | 12.7% |
| The Witcher | 54.9% | 36.2% |
| Bioshock | 68.4% | 63.7% |
| Oblivion | 72.3% | -35.7% |
Crysis, Assassin's Creed, The Witcher and Oblivion are all situations where performance either doesn't scale as well or drops when going from one to two GX2s, giving NVIDIA a reason to offer two GTX 280s over a clumsy Quad SLI setup.
Thanks to poor Quad SLI scaling, the GX2 SLI and the GTX 280 SLI perform the same, despite the GTX 280 being noticeably slower than the 9800 GX2 in single-card mode.
When it does scale well however, the GX2 SLI outperforms the GTX 280 SLI setup just as you'd expect.
Sometimes you run into serious issues with triple and quad SLI where performance is actually reduced; Oblivion at 2560 x 1600 is one of those situations and the result is the GTX 280 SLI gives you a better overall experience.
While we'd have trouble recommending a single GTX 280 over a single 9800 GX2, a pair of GTX 280s will probably give you a more hassle-free, and consistent experience than a pair of 9800 GX2s.
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gigahertz20 - Monday, June 16, 2008 - link
I think these ridiculous prices and lackluster performance is just a way for them to sell more SLI motherboards, who would buy a $650 GTX 280 when you can buy two 8800GT's with a SLI mobo and get better performance? Especially now that the 8800GT's are approaching around $150.crimson117 - Monday, June 16, 2008 - link
It's only worth riding the bleeding edge when you can afford to stay there with every release. Otherwise, 12 months down the line, you have no budget left for an upgrade, while everyone else is buying new $200 cards that beat your old $600 card.So yeah you can buy an 8800GT or two right now, and you and me should probably do just that! But Richie Rich will be buying 2x GTX 280's, and by the time we could afford even one of those, he'll already have ordered a pair of whatever $600 cards are coming out next.
7Enigma - Tuesday, June 17, 2008 - link
Nope, the majority of these cards go to Alienware/Falcon/etc. top of the line, overpriced pre-built systems. These are for the people that blow $5k on a system every couple years, don't upgrade, might not even seriously game, they just want the best TODAY.They are the ones that blindly check the bottom box in every configuration for the "fastest" computer money can buy.
gigahertz20 - Monday, June 16, 2008 - link
Very few people are richie rich and stay at the bleeding edge. People that are very wealthy tend not to be computer geeks and purchase their computers from Dell and what not. I'd say at least 96% of gamers out there are value oriented, these $650 cards will not sell much at all. If anything, you'll see people claim to have bought one or two of these in forums and other places, but their just lying.perzy - Monday, June 16, 2008 - link
Well I for one is waiting for Larabee. Maybee (probably) it isen' all that its cranked up to be, but I want to see.And what about some real powersaving Nvidia?
can - Monday, June 16, 2008 - link
I wonder if you can just flash the BIOS of the 260 to get it to operate as if it were a 280...7Enigma - Tuesday, June 17, 2008 - link
You haven't been able to do this for a long time....they learned their lessons the hard way. :)Nighteye2 - Monday, June 16, 2008 - link
Is it just me, or does this focus on compute power mean Nvidia is starting to get serious about using the GPU for physics, as well as graphics? It's also in-line with the Ageia acquisition.will889 - Monday, June 16, 2008 - link
At the point where NV has actually managed to position SLI mobos and GPU's where you actually need that much power to get decent FPS (above 30 average) from games gaming on the PC will be entirely dead to all those but the most esoteric. It would be different if there were any games worth playing or as many games as the console brethren have. I thought GPU's/cases/power supplies were supposed to become more efficient? EG smaller but faster sort of how the TV industry made TV's bigger yet smaller in footprint with way more features - not towering cases with 1200KW PSU's and 2X GTX 280 GPU's? All this in the face o drastically raised gas prices?Wanna impress me? How about a single GPU with the PCB size of a 7600GT/GS that's 15-25% faster than a 9800GTX that can fit into a SFF case? needing a small power supply AND able to run passively @ moderate temps. THAT would be impressive. No, Seargent Tom and his TONKA_TRUCK crew just have to show how beefy his toys can be and yank your wallet chains for said. Hell, everyone needs a Boeing 747 in their case right? cause' that's progress for those 1-2 gaming titles per years that give you 3-4 hours of enjoyable PC gaming.....
/off box
ChronoReverse - Tuesday, June 17, 2008 - link
The 4850 might actually hit that target...