BFG GeForce GTX 260 896MB Video Card Review

Manufacturer Product Page: BFG Tech - BFG NVIDIA GeForce GTX 260 896MB PCIe 2.0
Product Number: BFGEGTX260896E
Availability: Now
Warranty: Lifetime
Price: Click Here to Compare Prices



It really is a good time to be looking for a new graphics card, isn’t it? Prices are falling, with them overall performance per dollar is increasing and many holdouts out there are gradually being swayed into either ATI’s or Nvidia’s camp. Whether some people realize it or not, competition is a good thing and no matter which manufacturer you support it is their competitor who contributes to keep their prices within reason. There was a time within the last two years when we saw high-performance products from Team Red trail off into the distance and because of this, prices for high-end cards stagnated near and above the $500 range. Not only that, but very little forward progress was made in development of GPU architecture and we saw rehashes of the same cards over and over again. While we may still be seeing clones of the G80 cards (born again in the 65nm G90-series) their prices are amazingly affordable for the performance they offer after being confronted with the ATI HD4800-series. However, there are a couple of new kids on the block in the Nvidia stables which were built from the ground up and are raring to go.

Both the GTX 260 and the GTX 280 were launched a little over a month ago and while the higher end 280 was available immediately at launch, the less expensive 260 was greeted with a paper launch. Since that time, Nvidia seemed to have been surprised by ATI’s launch of the HD4800-series of cards which turned out to be extremely successful and performed above what many expected them to. In order to combat these lower-priced cards, Nvidia has sent the prices of the GTX 280 and GTX 260 into freefall. Once retailing for a bit over $400, GTX 260 cards can now be had for a shade under $300 after rebates here in Canada in some rare cases. Say it with me again: “competition is good”.

The GTX 260 resides in the lower-end of the GT200 series but is nonetheless pegged to go head to head against ATI’s HD4870. It has all the features of its big-brother but has a cut-down amount of memory, slightly lower clock speeds and less Stream Processors. All of these changes contribute to make this a much more affordable card while offering performance that was unheard of less than a year ago.

Unfortunately, up until now we have not been able to get our hands on one of these cards but BFG has finally stepped up to the plate and have provided us with one of their stock-clocked cards. This GTX 260 holds a bit of a dubious place in BFG’s lineup of being (believe it or not) less widely available than their overclocked “OC” version while actually costing a bit more as well. We can’t really fault BFG for this since we asked for a stock-clocked card and that is what they delivered. That being said, being backed up by BFG’s warranty and new Trade-Up program definitely has its benefits which are why customers usually take a very good look at their cards.