Date:
Monday , June 16, 2008
Author:
Brent Justice
Editor:
Kyle Bennett
Google +1

BFG Tech GeForce GTX 280 OC & GTX 260

NVIDIA’s next-gen GPU has arrived. We game with BFG Tech’s new GeForce GTX 280 OC in Crysis, Age of Conan, COD 4, and Assassin’s Creed. We’ve included the GeForce GTX 260 as well. Real gameplay advantages are to be had, especially in the brand new Age of Conan.

continued...

Crysis

(DirectX 10)

We are using the full version of Crysis. Crysis is a first person shooter that is set in 2019. What makes Crysis unique is the amazing destructible environment and the on the fly customizability of your character and your weapons. Then there is always the graphics quality that will bring even the top end video cards to their knees. We will be playing Crysis in the default APIs for our system, which launches automatically in DX10 mode with the 64-bit executable. We have applied the latest hotfix patch version 1.2.1 for Crysis.

As you progress through Crysis the game becomes more graphically demanding; first the scenic vistas, then the weather effects, and finally the final boss all lead your optimized playable settings of the first few levels to become unplayable. Our run-through in the graphs below involves 10 minutes of gameplay in “Assault_Crysis” the Harbor map. This map includes the transition from night to day, tons of explosions, particles, physics, AI interaction and water.

Note that in the graphs, we have lowered our redline to 25 FPS for Crysis. This game is demanding, and low framerates are impossible to avoid, gameplay is also different in this game to where 25 FPS and up feels very playable (Very likely due to the efficient use of motion blur.). Note that the down-spikes to 0 FPS in the graphs are due to the saved game points.

Article Image Article Image

Article Image

Article Image

Article Image

Finally, a single GPU video card is able to play at 1920x1200 with “High” in-game settings in Crysis! Up until now only an SLI configuration would allow you to achieve “High” settings at 1920x1200.

BFGTech GeForce GTX 280 OC Compared to GeForce 9800 GTX SLI

The BFGTech GeForce GTX 280 OC allowed us to play at 1920x1200 with almost every quality setting on “High.” We still had to drop Objects Quality to “Medium” for the smoothest gameplay, but we are still impressed with the quality level of settings at such a high resolution. The BFGTech GeForce GTX 280 OC’s gameplay experiences match that of the GeForce 9800 GTX SLI configuration in Crysis. Now, as you can see the GeForce 9800 GTX SLI configuration is actually producing a higher average framerate in Crysis. Keep in mind that GeForce 9800 GTX SLI utilizes two GeForce 9800 GTX video cards, which have 128 stream processors each, combined that gives us 256 stream processors. The BFGTech GeForce GTX 280 OC has 240 stream processors. The GeForce 9800 GTX’s stream processors are also clocked higher than the BFGTech GeForce GTX 280 OC’s stream processors.

These results indicate that Crysis still demands the most shader processing performance you can muster, despite the BFGTech GeForce GTX 280 OC having more memory bandwidth and a larger memory capacity. But, while the GeForce 9800 GTX SLI configuration is producing overall faster framerates, the BFGTech GeForce GTX 280 OC was still playable at the exact same settings, so the visual experience is THE SAME between the BFGTech GeForce GTX 280 OC and GeForce 9800 GTX SLI. Notice also that the GeForce 9800 GTX SLI configuration bottoms out with a lower minimum framerate. SLI can sometimes produce erratic framerates in games, and often times dips lower than a single GPU video card will.

BFGTech GeForce GTX 280 OC and GeForce GTX 260

The BFGTech GeForce GTX 280 OC squarely beats every other configuration tested here. It provides several gameplay advantages over the GeForce GTX 260 here in Crysis. We were able to increase Shadows, Volumetric Effects, Game Effects, Postprocessing and Particles quality to the “High” setting with the BFGTech GeForce GTX 280 OC compared to the GeForce GTX 260. The added shader performance allows a significant advantage over the GeForce GTX 260 in Crysis.

We also found the BFGTech GeForce GTX 280 OC allowed a higher gameplay experience than the GeForce 9800 GX2. In fact, the GeForce GTX 260 even allowed a higher gameplay experience than the GeForce 9800 GX2 in Crysis. We were able to increase AF to 16X with the GeForce GTX 260 and still experienced higher framerates compared to the GeForce 9800 GX2.

Both the GeForce GTX 260 and 280 are a large improvement over the GeForce 9800 GTX. A GeForce 9800 GTX is playable at 1600x1200 with most of the options at “Medium” in Crysis. The BFGTech GeForce GTX 280 OC allows us to not only raise the resolution to 1920x1200 but also enable almost everything to “High.”

2560x1600 Testing

We also did testing at 2560x1600 to see if the BFGTech GeForce GTX 280 OC could push Crysis at such a high resolution. We found that it could definitely could, but you would have to play with almost everything at “Medium.” The only in-game setting we found playable at “High” at 2560x1600 was the Texture Quality, and we did have 16X AF enabled. So our highest playable setting at 2560x1600 was NoAA/16X AF everything at “Medium” except for Texture Quality at “High.” The ability to play at 16X AF and have Textures at “High” at 2560x1600 in Crysis shows the performance advantage the added ROPs, memory bandwidth and memory capacity allow with the BFGTech GeForce GTX 280 OC.

We tried taking the GeForce GTX 260 up to 2560x1600 as well, but it just wasn’t the best resolution for that video card. We already had everything on “Medium” with the GTX 280 at 2560x1600, so there was nowhere else to go but to turn things on “Low” at 2560x1600 with the GTX 260, and that just makes the game look ugly. Therefore the best resolution for the GTX 260 is 1920x1200.

Antialiasing Performance

I know you all want to know about Antialiasing performance in Crysis considering the GTX 280 and GTX 260 have beefy memory specifications. Well, simply put, AA is a no-go even at 1920x1200 on the GTX 280. Crysis is incredibly demanding as it is, and adding AA is just really out of the question unless you lower everything to “Medium,” and then what’s the point, high resolution ugliness? Now, if you are going to play at a lower resolution, like 1280x1024, then sure, AA is very playable with the 260 and 280. We have a graphed comparison on the Apples-to-Apples page showing performance at 1920x1200 with 2X AA enabled, you can look over there for performance numbers.

”VeryHigh” Performance

The next question I know you all are waiting for us what about the “VeryHigh” setting in Crysis, can the GTX 280 push that? The simple answer is no, it cannot, sadly. We tried playing Crysis at 1600x1200 NoAA/16X AF with everything on “VeryHigh” and it WAS NOT playable on the BFGTech GeForce GTX 280 OC. We have a graphed comparison in the Apples-to-Apples section that shows what performance looks like with the game set to “VeryHigh,” so look over there for all the gory data.

Crysis in Summary

If we can sum up our experiences in Crysis, we can say that the GeForce GTX 280 is not the “Crysis killer,” in fact Crysis is the one doing the killing…still. Now that is not to say the GeForce GTX 280 is not a powerful video card, because it is. It MATCHES GeForce 9800 GTX SLI gameplay in Crysis. So it is a single GPU matching the gameplay experience of two last generations GPUs in Crysis, which is quite a feat. The GeForce GTX 260 was a little disappointing in Crysis, not a HUGE advantage over the GeForce 9800 GTX, but it does beat the GX2. Don’t let this Crysis performance behavior get you down though, as you will see on the remaining games, the GTX 260 and GTX 280 are incredibly performing video cards, so please read-on.