Nvidia launches new Geforce GTX 200 GPU family

Posted Jun 16th 2008 10:30AM by John Callaham
Filed under: Hardware

The newest launch of the top end performance graphics chips is the introduction today of the new Geforce GTX 200 series from Nvidia. The high end is represented by the Geforce GTX 280 which is set to launch tomorrow with graphics cards by a number of different companies. Cards with this version of the chip are expected to set you back $649.

So what do you get with that amount of cash? You get a graphics card that, among other things, supports the PhysX game physics software (which Nvidia bought earlier this year). The press release quotes Chris Taylor, the head of Gas Powered Games, as saying they plan to support PhysX with their upcoming action-RPG Space Siege, saying, "And in the near-future, you're going to see real-time, Hollywood cinematic-level environmental effects on GPUs like the GeForce GTX 280. We're talking about some wicked-cool technology here!" Nvidia also claims that gaming performance is 50 percent better than their last major launch, the Geforce 8800 Ultra. Support for three way SLI support is there and there's also support for CUDA technology which the company claims can offload a number of CPU processes over to the GPU.

In addition to the high powered and highly expensive Geforce GTX 280, there's also the less powerful and less pricey Geforce GTX 260 which will be released on June 26 for the suggested price of $399

Tags: geforce-gtx-200, geforce-gtx-260, geforce-gtx-280, nvidia

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Looks good but they are actually beat out in price/performance by multi GPU configurations of older cards. You can do 8800gt SLI for ~$300 and get very comparable performance to the $650 GTX 280. If the 280 were $450 and the 260 were $300 I think these would be a buy but not at these prices. I actually have some extra money for a GPU upgrade but there just isn't anything here worth replacing my 8800GTS 640mb SLI config for. I hope AMD has some kind of trick up their sleeve that will force prices down on the high end but I won't hold my breath. This is why we need competition.

...bysmittyPosted at 11:59AM on Jun 16th 2008 by bysmitty

Right now there is just no reason to buy a high-end GPU or CPU. The steady flow of high- intensive games is just not there. I mean the only thing coming out is Far Cry 2 and Crysis Warhead and mostly any Nvidia 8K GPU can run it and even some 7K. No one at this time should upgrade and if you do the best thing to do is go for a sli 8K series configuration and save your money for a huge upgrade later when software can use all the hardware you have. Posted at 6:46PM on Jun 16th 2008 by Tyranis1

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