Although the GTX 280 is the best performance card in the market, it doesn’t mean it’s a perfect problem. With the choice of keeping the 65nm production process, nVidia didn’t aim at a cost reduction for their GT200 chipset, that could have resulted in a better price to the end-customer in case an inferior process had been chosen. Also, nVidia has not supported the new DirectX 10.1 and Shader Model 4.1, which is rather unusual and hard to understand the reasons behind it.

The Gainward GeForce GTX 280 is capable of performing at top level when playing any of the games currently in the market, with all filters and maximum resolutions. More demanding games such as “Crysis” perform rather well also with the DX10 but without active filters.

This card is recommended to any user that wants the best from each and every game, regardless of the price.

Pro:

- Top performances, even with high resolution and active filters
- Great overclocking performances
- High quality materials
- Great technologies such as Hybrid SLI, Pure Video HD, CUDA, nVidia PhysX and Triple SLI

Cons:

- High retail price
- High energy consumption
- High idle temperatures
- Lack of support to the new Microsoft DirectX 10.1 and Shader Model 4.1