Gigabyte Sponsored EP45-DS3R/GTX 260 review

[bubblescivic]

Spressa from Houston-Imports.com wanted to run his ATi HD4870 against my lowly 8800GT, I ramped up my game to a GTX260 for my monster build.


System Specifications:
Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 3.00ghz @ 4.05ghz
Thermalright Ultra-120 Extreme with Arctic Silver Ceramique & Lian-Li 120mm fan
Gigabyte GA-EP45-DS3R v.1.0 motherboard
Gigabyte Nvidia GeForce GTX 260 896mb 576mhz
G.Skill DDR2 2GBHZ DDR2 800 @ 4-4-4-12, DDR2 900
2x Western Digital Velociraptor 300gb drives in RAID 0 128k Stripe
1x Western Digital GreenPower 1tb drive
Seasonic M12 700w PSU
Lian-Li PC-7B Plus II with window
Lian-Li Media Card Reader
Lian-Li Floppy Drive Bezel

here she is boys...

damn, that's a pretty box

here's how the card came... out of it's static bag of course.

accessories

check out the caps they put on the card to protect the ports! so awesome!

here's the card with the driver disc on top of the black cardboard box it came in.

check out that clearance on the top HDD! i had to move the top HDD forward by 1/2" just to get the GTX 260 to fit.

sooooooo close... but well worth it!

wires cleaned up.... fkn beretta.

the computer put together

blue matches the video card and all of the Gigabyte motherboards!

the same hot asian chick telling me to install my drivers...

benches will be unleashed on next post!

 

[bubblescivic]

Source games done at 1280x1024 with high settings.

297.13 fps in Half-Life 2: Lost Coast Stress Test

514.25fps in Counter-Strike:Source Stress Test

ATi what? same specs on the cpu and the GTX STOMPS the 4870... where you at spressa?

my 3dmark06 with the GTX 260

compared to an E8400@ 4.14ghz with an HD4870.. i guess that's the end of the debate.

Gigabyte was gracious enough to allow me to review their card which has been nothing but amazing in performance...

Hopefully I'll be able to get some more goodies to test out when Nehalem drops.

In my honest opinion, at the 300 dollar price point... you simply CAN NOT beat the GTX 260 for performance dollar

for dollar. It's significantly faster than my old 8800GT SC (of course) and it's faster than the HD4870... ATi/AMD

need to start hiring intel's engineers to get their company back in order. If their stock price gets any lower I

think they might just shut down operations. =]

 

[mep916]

Once the GTX 260 drops below 200$, I'm gettin one. Very satisfied with my 280.

I'll run a Vantage bench and see how it compares to your specs. I'm guessing you may take it, as your CPU clock gives a significant advantage. Can't get my Q9450 stable past 3.6 GHz - not even for benching.

 

[bubblescivic]

Once the GTX 260 drops below 200$, I'm gettin one. Very satisfied with my 280.

I'll run a Vantage bench and see how it compares to your specs. I'm guessing you may take it, as your CPU clock gives a significant advantage. Can't get my Q9450 stable past 3.6 GHz - not even for benching.

it depends on vantage... if it utilizes all your cores at once than your computer should be faster

 

[Archangel]

I dont know what the situation is over there,.. but I have 2 3870's, wich can be bought for 100 Euros in a shop while the 260 gtx costs 260 euros.

a E8400 at 4GHz scores higher than my Q6600 @ 3.6GHz. but the score of my 3DMark06 was 18.5K ( 1280x1024, default settings)
so imo, you can beat the cost/performance of the 260gtx (still looks like a great card tough)

 

[mikesrex]

I dont know what the situation is over there,.. but I have 2 3870's, wich can be bought for 100 Euros in a shop while the 260 gtx costs 260 euros.

a E8400 at 4GHz scores higher than my Q6600 @ 3.6GHz. but the score of my 3DMark06 was 18.5K ( 1280x1024, default settings)
so imo, you can beat the cost/performance of the 260gtx (still looks like a great card tough)

what is the cost on the motherboard you have to run to get these kinds of numbers with two video cards?

 

[bubblescivic]

I dont know what the situation is over there,.. but I have 2 3870's, wich can be bought for 100 Euros in a shop while the 260 gtx costs 260 euros.

a E8400 at 4GHz scores higher than my Q6600 @ 3.6GHz. but the score of my 3DMark06 was 18.5K ( 1280x1024, default settings)
so imo, you can beat the cost/performance of the 260gtx (still looks like a great card tough)

ATi cards are very loud as well and the cards are dropping in price... this is an old GTX 260 not the 216 version.

 

[mep916]

For whatever reason, I can't get Vantage to complete a test. Running my GPU at stock and my CPU @ 3.4 GHz.

 

[Archangel]

what is the cost on the motherboard you have to run to get these kinds of numbers with two video cards?

the motherboard cost me 140 euros. (while a P35 board, wich I would have gotten otherwise would have costed me 110) so its still cheaper. as for Ati cards beeing loud, my cards are now passive cooled. and I can assure you, my old 7800GTX's for example were much noisyer than these cards were with the stock cooler on it (the Asus 3870 was really quiet on its stock cooler already,.. just too bad the vram didnt have heatsinks on it)
either way, I dont wanna start some fanboy-ish thing here.. really not in the mood for that. I'm just saying, considering I can get my current setup cheaper than that one, the price/value isnt as unbeatable as you might think.


what do you mean with? (if I may ask )

this is an old GTX 260 not the 216 version

 

[mep916]

what do you mean with? (if I may ask )

It's an updated model of the GTX 260. It adds an additional 24 stream processors, for a total of 216.

 

[bubblescivic]

the motherboard cost me 140 euros. (while a P35 board, wich I would have gotten otherwise would have costed me 110) so its still cheaper. as for Ati cards beeing loud, my cards are now passive cooled. and I can assure you, my old 7800GTX's for example were much noisyer than these cards were with the stock cooler on it (the Asus 3870 was really quiet on its stock cooler already,.. just too bad the vram didnt have heatsinks on it)
either way, I dont wanna start some fanboy-ish thing here.. really not in the mood for that. I'm just saying, considering I can get my current setup cheaper than that one, the price/value isnt as unbeatable as you might think.


what do you mean with? (if I may ask )

the P45 chipset is faster clock for clock than the P35. mikesrex and i have proven that with the same CPU, RAM and clock speed. we work hard making a good reputation for ourselves with overclocking and all, and getting sponsored by Gigabyte is just one of the perks.

 

[ScOuT]

I have been telling people on CF how good of a card the GTX 260 is and all I catch is flack! It really is a great card for the price right now, I think the best priceerformance ratio of a single card setup. The new 216 core series will be even better!

Although the 216 core model is a little over $300 right now, you can pick up an Evga 192 core model for $230 right now
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130370

 

[bubblescivic]

I have been telling people on CF how good of a card the GTX 260 is and all I catch is flack! It really is a great card for the price right now, I think the best priceerformance ratio of a single card setup. The new 216 core series will be even better!

Although the 216 core model is a little over $300 right now, you can pick up an Evga 192 core model for $230 right now
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130370

SLi? hmmmm i think i might have to get an X48.