Date:
Monday , March 02, 2009
Author:
Matthew Krysiak
Editor:
Brent Justice
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ASUS GTX 260 55nm & 4870 Dark Knight 1GB

Today we have a double review for you from ASUS with a GeForce GTX 260 (216 core 55nm) and a HD 4870 battling for your dollar. First we take a look at the latest reincarnation of the GeForce GTX 260 with the ASUS ENGTX260 which has a die shrink. We also look at the ASUS EAH4870 Dark Knight that might prove to be a step up from a reference card.

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System Test Setup

For our test system platform we are using an ASUS Blitz Formula motherboard with an Intel Core 2 Extreme QX9650 processor at 3.66GHz, and 4GB of OCZ Technology DDR2 PC2-8000 Platinum. For the power supply, we will be using a Corsair TX750W.

While it might be a bit "overkill," we use the 3.6GHz overclocked quad-core processor in an attempt to keep from putting our evaluation into a position of being CPU limited. Obviously, we make every effort to not use CPU limited games for video card evaluations, but the 3.6GHz processor seems to put many peoples’ minds at ease when it comes to that subject.

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Driver Setup

With both the NVIDIA and AMD video cards we will be using the latest WHQL drivers at the time of evaluation. For the NVIDIA video cards we will be using ForceWare 182.06. For the AMD video card we will be using the Catalyst 9.2.

Evaluation Method

We evaluate what each video card configuration can supply us in terms of a playable gaming experience while supplying the best culmination of resolution and "eye candy" graphical settings. We focus on quality and immersion of the gameplay experience rather than how many frames per second the card can get in a canned benchmark or prerecorded timedemo situation that often do not represent real gameplay like you would experience at home . Then we will follow with apples-to-apples testing based on real gameplay as well.