Galaxy Enters the GTX 260+ Game

Introduction

Last month NVIDIA and its partners introduced a new product into the market known internally at NVIDIA as the GeForce GTX 260.  One problem, that name was already taken by a GPU released in June.  What NVIDIA had done was the same GPU core that existed in the original GTX 260 with 192 shader processors and bumped it up to 216 shaders to better compete with AMD's updated Radeon 4000-series of graphics cards.  While NVIDIA seemed determined to call the product just "GTX 260" neither the press nor NVIDIA's partners seemed to fall for trick.  Many went with call it the "GTX 270" or the "GTX 260+"; the latter got the biggest foot hold.

The Galaxy GeForce GTX 260+ Graphics Card

Galaxy has been quickly making a name for itself in the consumer graphics card market under its new US-based brand, KFA2.  We already reviewed the Galaxy GeForce 9800 GT and Galaxy GeForce 9500 GT but the new Galaxy GeForce GTX 260+ 896MB card is their highest performance offering in the channel to date. 

The cooler design on the Galaxy GeForce 260+ is the same as the reference cards and other retail cards so there isn't much to talk about on this area.  Obviously there is a new sticker on the card...woo hoo. 

Unlike the GTX 280 that requires a single 8-pin PCIe power connection and one 6-pin, the GTX2 60 and GTX 260+ cards require two 6-pin connections making them more compatible with existing systems and power supplies.  The smaller opening to the right of the power connectors is for the digital audio connection that allows for audio pass through on the card and out an HDMI connection on the back.

The GeForce GTX 260+ is one of just a handful of cards that officially supports NVIDIA's 3-Way SLI technology.

The Galaxy GTX 260+ card offers up two dual-link DVI outputs and a single TV output that supports both S-Video and component output via an included dongle.

Here is the Galaxy card with all the included dongles attached - included are the above mentioned component output, DVI-to-VGA adapter and DVI-to-HDMI adapter. 

As for the rest of the box components you also receive the digital audio cable for a connection to the video card from your sound card or motherboard, two power adapters and legacy S-Video cable. 

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