eVGA Geforce GTX 260 for $214 (AMIR) at Newegg (USA)

I have never seen a review of a GTX 260 reach that high a temp either.

Heatsink appeared to be a proper fit when I took it apart... only thing I noted was a mountain of thermal paste was used! Am not kidding, way to much paste, perhaps cooler wasn't making full contact because was very thick between the IHS and the GPU cooler. Only explanation I have been able to come up with... but not entirely sure yet.

might be a wrong fit of the GTX260 heatsink, reviews have it at much lower temps under load;

I got this card Wednesday. Something was wrong with it, not sure what:

Ambient temp ~25c. Idle temp 51c. Load temp with ATI Tool 104c+, I stopped the program before the temp leveled off!! Fan was set at 40%. I changed the fan speed, card still got very hot... 79c load just for F@H.

Decided to chance it, replaced stock cooler with D-Tek Fuzion 2 GFX. Idle temp 39c, load temp with ATI Tool ~51c. 55c if Q6600 is loaded down with GPU. Much, much better...

No one has mentioned this before that I have seen, but all GT200 cards have PLASTIC "cooling" the memory chips on the backside of the card! Not very happy with NVIDIA's "cost cutting" design... very stupid.

Heh, so assuming you miss the registration deadline, you get a better warranty than us US-side. That's funny.

US-side, for eVGA if you do not register the card on their website within 30 days of purchase, only 1-year warranty applies. Are you sure this is not also true outside of US, would expect so? Or is this also illegal in the EU?

if you are second user and got the invoice; you can claim warranty without issue here.

you are correct about the cooler, but OC is allowed though.(XFX/eVGA... others don't play extreme)

I had heard that... crazy laws Also no 2nd-user warranty either, and also removing the card's cooler or overclocking still voids the warranty outside the US I believe.

GDDR3 is extremely failure prone... am hoping GDDR5 fixes the high degredation issue, but until then ANY GDDR3 type GPU I buy must have a 5+ year warranty. The GDDR3 chips on my Foxconn 8800GTS 320mb are failing, I never ran them overclocked beyond brief testing periods. Currently have them underclocked to 1600MHz.

in EU life-time warranty is not legal, I think XFX/eVGA are down to 10-years which is well beyond product life cycle

ATI had a huge lead when GTX 260 was $450 and 4870 was $300, but now that the 260 is almost $50 cheaper (with this deal) it was an easy choice to make. My single concern is GT200b which should arrive this August/September, but I am betting prices on original GTX 260 parts will not drop below $215 anyway. Was already $30 below MSRP + $65 discount ontop of that, and was not even the base stock-clocked model.

I did not know any ATI card had a lifetime warranty, finding out Visentek does was a major surprise. I would have enjoyed playing with an ATI card just to find the differences (Better drivers, perhaps?), and with WC could have overclocked the 4870 like crazy, but NVIDIA still had the better fit. No point in burning ~200w of power folding and only producing 1/3 of the results. (So much for 1.2TFLOPS of performance, eh?)

My watercooling parts are going to get here today, ordered @ the same time as the GTX 260 from Newegg but will be Monday or Tuesday before the GPU shows up...gah.

yup, without ATI HD4870 you would have paid $350+ for that same card

Here in .BE cheapest HD4870 is €225 http://www.tones.be/shop_product.php?idx=105512
cheapest GTX 260 is €270
http://www.tones.be/shop_product.php?idx=105511

it's a no brainer; ATI has huge lead in price/performance here

Biggest reason is price, cheapest HD 4870 costs $255 AMIR! Second reason is performance, the HD 4870 in most games was mostly a tie with the GTX 260 around 1920x1200. Overclocked GTX 260 wins most benchmarks. Third, warranty! Only ATI card with lifetime warranty is Visentek. I would prefer XFX first, but eVGA is second best for warranty.

The HD 4870 is a better card for 2560x1600 or 8xAA, but neither of which I plan to use...

Fourth reason: Folding@Home

HD 4870 Folding@home scores ~2200PPD.
GTX 260 Folding@home scores ~65000PPD. (Conservative estimate)

Folding@home PPD should double on HD 4850/4870 once Standford optimizes their GPU2 client to use all 800 shaders, but still is low compared to GT200.

$450+shipping video card for $215 shipped w/ factory overclock, to good a buy to resist.

Edit: My thanks to ATI.

Updated! Thanks for the info; what made you choose GTX260 over HD4870 as they are both at the €225-250 price range. Doesn't the HD4870 offer higher performance?

I bought this on Thursday. The price was actually $214 AMIR as there is a second $10 rebate + free shipping.

This is the "Superclocked" edition, not stock clocked. Small bonus. Almost wish I'd paid for expedited shipping, going to be a huge upgrade over my 8800GTS 320mb.