Conclusion
We selected a 3-way GTX 260 Core 216 graphics solution for our $2,500 PC with hopes of greater gaming performance, particularly in Crysis, at a lower price. Let’s take a quick look at the overall gaming performance difference before considering value.
Crysis performance was improved, but at a cost in other games. The win is far more significant than the losses when one considers that Crysis is the only game that actually needed the additional performance simply to be playable at the targeted 1920x1200 pixel resolution. Still, the average of all games must be used for determining value.
GTX 280 graphics cards were far more expensive when we chose our components over a month ago. Currently, the overclocked GTX 260 Core 216 model we used costs $260 per card, which is far from the cheapest current model. We had overclocked our GTX 280 samples by the same amount, and the closest-matching card from the same manufacturer currently costs $400. What was previously a savings of around $100 has thus dropped to only $20. Let’s see how much this shrinks the value difference.
Though the 3-way SLI configuration does have slightly better value, it’s hard to imagine that anyone today would choose a motherboard specifically to support it. What appeared to be a value coup only five weeks ago has become nothing more than a footnote, thanks to falling prices on Nvidia’s current top model as the company prepares to launch its “next big thing.”
To answer the question posed at the beginning of this piece, no. Three of a kind doesn't always beat a pair. Five weeks ago, three GeForce GTX 260 Core 216s would have saved you $100 over the price of two GTX 280s. But today, in light of the cards Nvidia is expected to launch at this year's CES, the difference is nearly a wash.
It just goes to show how quickly things move along, and goes to support my personal mantra of "if you're prepared to pay for it, then get it when you want it". You simply cannot hang about now waiting for significant price drops or the next big thing because it all moves along too quickly.
are these better than my gforce 2 mx440?
nice article, but ca you please be consistent with the colours on the graphs, sometimes the 260's are blues sometimes the 280's are blue, this changed on the same page. We can see which bar is biggest we don't need 'blue is best' style colour coding as well.
All looks so very nice! I now have to find out if it is worth it to upgarde to these or wait? I have 2 BFG8800 GTs, perhaps I should wait for the next gen. of cards to come out. I just hope that my 1000 watt power supply will be good enough for the next gen. of cards?!?!
1000 watt is sure enough! You could run two GTX280 cards with that. With the smaller manufacturing processes coming up, graphic cards shouldn't get more power thirsty in the future then the current top line. The GTX280 and 260 are the most power hungry cards in history. It's redicilous actually how much power these things require.
If I were you, I would wait. The 8800GT is still a decent card, and with two of them, you still can run almost every game to the max. I don't know what your processor is, probably an E8400 or a Q6600. With those processors (especially the Q6600), anything faster then two 8800GT cards will be overkill. Your processor will be a bottleneck. Only with the really fast i7 systems it makes sense to put in two cards. You can even see in these benchmarks that the i7 processor here bottlenecks 3 GTX260 cards. I would only put that much graphics power in the i7 extreme processor, and then still it would probably be a bottleneck. These graphics cards are redicilously powerful on their own. There isn't a processor out there yet which can keep up with 3 GTX280, or even GTX260 cards.
i've got a Q6600 on a G33 board with 4Gb DDR800 @ 1066
GFX card is an aging 7950GT (quadro 3500) and its getting choppy running current games at 2560x1024.
what single card can i upgrade to to push that and 3840x1024 happily?
i know the Q6600 is going to be a bottleneck etc, but i'm not going to upgrade till i7 gets down to mainstream, so 260? 280? 285? and has anyone got a massive passive cooling solution for the 200 series?
Forget about all the benchmark crap! Go buy a good card or 2 or 3 and put them in your rig. If you have a great picture and graphics at whatever resolutions you play, then that's all that matters!!!