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Elsewhere, it will be interesting to see how (if at all) AMD respond to the launch of the GTX 460. They still have the upper-hand at performance-per-watt, and with just how similar the GTX 460 and the Radeon 5850 are in terms of die size and power consumption there?s clearly some flexibility on their part to change things. The Radeon 5830 must come down in price or go away entirely, it?s what happens to the 5850 that?s the question. We?ve seen the GTX 460 lock horns with the 5850, and while the 5850 is undoubtedly the faster gaming card the $300 price point no longer makes as much sense as it once did with a $230 1GB GTX 460 below it. AMD either needs a 5840, or a price drop on the 5850 to bring its price more in line with its performance.

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Originally posted by Firingsquad.com:

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NVIDIA manufactures all of the cards for their partners (board production is usually farmed out by NVIDIA to Flextronics or Foxconn), so all GTX 260 and 280 cards come off the same production line regardless of the card manufacturer.

NVIDIA does this to ensure a consistent level of quality across the line. Board partners are free to go beyond the stock clock speeds, but other than this, no modifications to the reference design are allowed.

Because of this policy, when you?re determining which GeForce GTX 260 card you should purchase, the hardware itself isn?t as important as other factors such as price, game bundle, warranty/support, and the clock speeds of the card(s) you?re interested in purchasing. It?s in these categories that the XFX GeForce GTX 260 Black Edition really excels.

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