GTX260C216 + 180.47

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Keysplayr

Elite Member
Jan 16, 2003
21,209
50
91
Originally posted by: warbean
These drivers are a disappointment for me.

E8600, 4 gigs RAM, vista 64

178 drivers on Crysis Warhead with Geforce 260 (original, not core 216)
26.52 fps on 1920 x 1200, gamer settings, 2x AA

180 driver, same setting,
26.57 fps. (after 3 loops)

a gain of .0018%, or about 2 tenths of 1 percent. Far short of the "up to 10% gains in Crysis Warhead" claimed in the patch notes.

What patch? Regarding patch notes.
 

nRollo

Banned
Jan 11, 2002
10,460
0
0
Originally posted by: warbean
These drivers are a disappointment for me.

E8600, 4 gigs RAM, vista 64

178 drivers on Crysis Warhead with Geforce 260 (original, not core 216)
26.52 fps on 1920 x 1200, gamer settings, 2x AA

180 driver, same setting,
26.57 fps. (after 3 loops)

a gain of .0018%, or about 2 tenths of 1 percent. Far short of the "up to 10% gains in Crysis Warhead" claimed in the patch notes.

Maybe the 10% was at a setting you weren't running, or with SLi?

I think we can all take one thing for granted:

No driver or hardware on the planet last year, this year, or likely next year is going to have us running Crysis at 60fps with AA on a single GPU. The game was clearly designed for engine longevity, and to showcase how good games could look.

If Crysis is your sole determining factor for gaming satisfaction, I suggest you are in for a life of disappointement. (unless you spring for the GTX280 3 way perhaps)

I'd be very surprised if we see huge gains in this game anytime soon.
 

deerhunter716

Member
Jul 17, 2007
163
0
0
Definitely NOT the new bang for your buck card. The best part of the Anandtech review o nthese drivers:

"But NVIDIA believes that their GeForce GTX 260 core 216 competes well with the similarly priced Radeon HD 4870 1GB part. Well, that's not entirely true. NVIDIA believes they have a better part, but from what we've seen in the past there are definitely reasons to pick up the 4870 1GB instead (as we have recommended in the past)."
 

james1701

Golden Member
Sep 14, 2007
1,873
59
91
Crysis has been out over a year now. It has had driver optimizations done to death on it. I doubt we are going to get any new revaluations concerning drivers for this game. In five years, this game will have a wonderful rebirth when cards are to the point people are going to start making mods that will make it look better and be even more demanding than what it is now on very high, on a single card solution. Its getting to be kind of like Doom 3. You still see benches every now and then, but not much ever changes.

Don't get me wrong, Crysis is my favorite game. I was about to uninstall FC2 because I really don't care for it. COD is OK, but nothing special the fifth time around. Crysis is the bomb for me, but I think we are about at the end of the road as to what driver optimizations can do for it. It just takes a lot of muscle to run it, and we are not at that point yet to where you can turn on all the bells and whistles at high resolutions with a single or dual card and still run the way we want. At this point in time it takes either a triple card setup, or a dual X2 card, to really see how it was ment to be played. To my knowledge no other game has been able to say its been released for over a year and has not been fully conquered with a single card solution, let along a dual card setup. I think its that goes a long way about saying how much ahead of its time that game really is. Many people will bash it, call it unoptimized, when in truth are upset because they do not have the rig to run it, when in fact very few people do.
 

james1701

Golden Member
Sep 14, 2007
1,873
59
91
Originally posted by: deerhunter716
Definitely NOT the new bang for your buck card. The best part of the Anandtech review o nthese drivers:

"But NVIDIA believes that their GeForce GTX 260 core 216 competes well with the similarly priced Radeon HD 4870 1GB part. Well, that's not entirely true. NVIDIA believes they have a better part, but from what we've seen in the past there are definitely reasons to pick up the 4870 1GB instead (as we have recommended in the past)."

ATI was talking about reworking the 4870's to get a big increase on clock and memory speeds. I don't know when it will be released, but if it does happen, that should be well above the 260 216 and start beating on the 280 would it not?
 

Keysplayr

Elite Member
Jan 16, 2003
21,209
50
91
Originally posted by: deerhunter716
Definitely NOT the new bang for your buck card. The best part of the Anandtech review o nthese drivers:

"But NVIDIA believes that their GeForce GTX 260 core 216 competes well with the similarly priced Radeon HD 4870 1GB part. Well, that's not entirely true. NVIDIA believes they have a better part, but from what we've seen in the past there are definitely reasons to pick up the 4870 1GB instead (as we have recommended in the past)."

From what they've seen in the past? As in pre BigBang II drivers? Ok then.
Not to mention that the very next sentence after the one you quoted, states:

"NVIDIA approached us last week with some information on a handful of recently released games saying that their GeForce GTX 260 core 216 was the best option in these new titles. We'll certainly see after we run all the tests, but stay tuned for an update on that area."

So, they haven't done squat yet with the newer titles.

And you also don't perceive a 229.00 AR GTX216 that performs equal to or better than a 4870 1GB at 269.99 AR (lowest price on newegg) ??? How do you figure? You know ATI is going to have to reduce their 4870 1GB pricing now. That is, if they wish to have a good holiday sales season for this price point.

Both the 229 and 239 Zotac models have both sold out already at the egg.
Only ones left are eVGA at 249.99 and Gigabyte at 244.99 that are priced low enough.
And the eVGA comes with FarCry2.
 

deerhunter716

Member
Jul 17, 2007
163
0
0
They simply say there are reasons to go the route of 4870 as they have recommended. So not a thing has changed yet at all. So I take that as nvidia has a ways to go :)
 

SlowSpyder

Lifer
Jan 12, 2005
17,305
1,001
126
According to the AT review they seem to have lost more performance then they gained. Is it that you only get these big performance jumps at certain settings? Seems like a mixed bag so far.
 

nRollo

Banned
Jan 11, 2002
10,460
0
0
Originally posted by: deerhunter716
They simply say there are reasons to go the route of 4870 as they have recommended. So not a thing has changed yet at all. So I take that as nvidia has a ways to go :)

The consensus among the sites who have actually reviewed the drivers is that NVIDIA went a "ways" past ATi.

;)


 

myocardia

Diamond Member
Jun 21, 2003
9,291
30
91
Originally posted by: james1701
To my knowledge no other game has been able to say its been released for over a year and has not been fully conquered with a single card solution, let along a dual card setup. I think its that goes a long way about saying how much ahead of its time that game really is. Many people will bash it, call it unoptimized, when in truth are upset because they do not have the rig to run it, when in fact very few people do.

You must be young, because the original Far Cry was identical in every way. It was released in March 2004, but there wasn't a video card that could play it @ anywhere near maxed settings until the 8800GTX was released, over 18 months later. As a matter of fact, it still gives a $150-200 card a serious workout, with everything maxed. BTW, everything the whiners have been whining about since the release of Crysis, they said those same things about Far Cry, and for exactly the same reasons. I do agree with what you're saying, though.
 

OCGuy

Lifer
Jul 12, 2000
27,227
36
91
Originally posted by: james1701
Originally posted by: deerhunter716
Definitely NOT the new bang for your buck card. The best part of the Anandtech review o nthese drivers:

"But NVIDIA believes that their GeForce GTX 260 core 216 competes well with the similarly priced Radeon HD 4870 1GB part. Well, that's not entirely true. NVIDIA believes they have a better part, but from what we've seen in the past there are definitely reasons to pick up the 4870 1GB instead (as we have recommended in the past)."

ATI was talking about reworking the 4870's to get a big increase on clock and memory speeds. I don't know when it will be released, but if it does happen, that should be well above the 260 216 and start beating on the 280 would it not?

Umm...you can clock those things yourself. Just like the GT200 OCs very nicely, negating any gains from OCing a 4870.
 

schneiderguy

Lifer
Jun 26, 2006
10,769
52
91
Originally posted by: myocardia

You must be young, because the original Far Cry was identical in every way. It was released in March 2004, but there wasn't a video card that could play it @ anywhere near maxed settings until the 8800GTX was released, over 18 months later. As a matter of fact, it still gives a $150-200 card a serious workout, with everything maxed. BTW, everything the whiners have been whining about since the release of Crysis, they said those same things about Far Cry, and for exactly the same reasons. I do agree with what you're saying, though.

:confused:

http://www.pcstats.com/article...?articleid=1578&page=8

6800's and x800's could max out the game with 4x AA and 8x AF, 9800's could also at lower resolutions.



 

CP5670

Diamond Member
Jun 24, 2004
5,508
586
126
Those benchmarks are just average scores and don't seem to use HDR either, which cuts the performance in about half. I'm replaying Far Cry right now on a GTX 280 and there are occasionally areas that go slow (below 40fps) on 1600x1200 with 8x AA, although they are rare. At the same time though, the graphics are comparable to many 2007 games if you turn up everything and use the content update.
 

edplayer

Platinum Member
Sep 13, 2002
2,186
0
0
Originally posted by: nRollo
I think this is the new bang for buck champ.

That would be very surprising as bang for the buck champs are usually low priced products. I think the current champ would be 9600GT cards as they can be found for $60 after rebate.