NVIDIA GeForce GTX 260 Core 216: EVGA, Zotac

Name: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 260 Core 216: EVGA, Zotac - Page 4
Brand: NVIDIA

by Marco Chiappetta — Tuesday, September 16, 2008, 09:00 AM EDT

NVIDIA Accelerates the Search For a Cure

Futuremark 3DMark Vantage

Synthetic DirectX Gaming

3DMark Vantage

The latest version of Futuremark's synthetic 3D gaming benchmark, 3DMark Vantage, is specifically bound to Windows Vista-based systems because it uses some advanced visual technologies that are only available with DirectX 10, which y isn't available on previous versions of Windows. 3DMark Vantage isn't simply a port of 3DMark06 to DirectX 10 though. With this latest version of the benchmark, Futuremark has incorporated two new graphics tests, two new CPU tests, several new feature tests, in addition to support for the latest PC hardware. We tested the graphics cards here with 3DMark Vantage's Extreme preset option, which uses a resolution of 1,920x1,200, with 4x anti-aliasing an 16x anisotropic filtering.

The new GeForce GTX 260 Core 216 cards from EVGA and Zotac performed very well in the 3DMark Vantage benchmark. Performance was clearly superior to the first-gen GTX 260 and markedly ahead of the Radeon HD 4870.

Things only got better for the new GeForce GTX 260 Core 216 cards when running them in an SLI configuration. In this test, the GTX 260 Core 216 SLI configuration easily outpaced the first-gen GTX 260 cards running in SLI and a pair of Radeon HD 4870 cards running in a CrossFire configuration.

Tags: Nvidia, Core 2, GeForce, Zotac, evga, Core, GTX, 260, GeForce GTX 260, GTX 260, GeForce GTX, VGA, force, GT, OTA, AC, id

Marco Chiappetta

Marco's interest in computing and technology dates all the way back to his early childhood. Even before being exposed to the Commodore P.E.T. and later the Commodore 64 in the early ‘80s, he was interested in electricity and electronics, and he still has the modded AFX cars and shop-worn soldering irons to prove it. Once he got his hands on his own Commodore 64, however, computing became Marco's passion. Throughout his academic and professional lives, Marco has worked with virtually every major platform from the TRS-80 and Amiga, to today's high end, multi-core servers. Over the years, he has worked in many fields related to technology and computing, including system design, assembly and sales, professional quality assurance testing, and technical writing. In addition to being the Managing Editor here at HotHardware for close to 15 years, Marco is also a freelance writer whose work has been published in a number of PC and technology related print publications and he is a regular fixture on HotHardware’s own Two and a Half Geeks webcast. - Contact: marco(at)hothardware(dot)com