BFG Tech has ticked most of
the boxes on our checklist with its GeForce GTX 285 OCX graphics card - its
clock speed increases are impressive, there's still headroom for overclocking,
performance is excellent, the after sales service has a proven track record and
it's the fastest single GPU graphics card we've ever tested. But all of this
comes at a price and sadly that cost is just too much when you look at the
wider market in the UK.
There are still a bunch of
bargain GeForce GTX 280s on the market and if I were you, I'd snap one of those
up while I can. Following that, your next best bet is the Radeon HD 4850 X2,
but be wary of its fan noise - it's not offensively loud with the latest BIOS,
but it's not anywhere near as quiet as the Nvidia competition. Moreover, the
Radeon HD 4850 X2 has potential limitations that stem from its dual-GPUness and
many don't want to swallow that pill - it's also not going to set the world on
fire in Folding@Home. Typically, Nvidia's cards can deliver more points per day
and so they're better suited to that task.
The market has shifted and Nvidia needs to lower the prices of its GeForce GTX
285 GPUs so that partners can compete with the competition that's out there
from AMD. At the moment, most of the GeForce GTX 285s are competing against the
Radeon HD 4870 X2 and I think we all know who wins that battle. @ bit-tech
