EVGA GeForce GTX 280 Superclocked

Final Thoughts

The EVGA GeForce GTX 280 Superclocked finds itself in a difficult situation. With over twenty Nvidia board partners the market is flooded with versions of the GeForce GTX 280 running at overclocked, super overclocked and stock speeds. This, unsurprisingly, has generated a fierce pricing war and while EVGA claim it wants to avoid this and concentrate on selling only overclocked and super-clocked cards at a premium (to reflect the brand), you can now pick up a stock GeForce GTX 280 for as little as £290. Compared to the £330 EVGA charges for a small overclock that equates to just a couple of FPS difference - is it really worth it? Can you overclock a stock card up 3 percent?

Probably, however EVGA's overclock is guaranteed and warranted under its excellent ten year service and 90 day step-up program. If you keep your card overclocked for many years the chances of it dying eventually are quite high - EVGA has to give you the equivalent value of a new card to the one when you bought it. Now compare what you could get 3/4/5/6+ years ago for £330 versus today. To some, it's a logical investment.

The relatively minor three percent overclock on the EVGA GeForce GTX 280 Superclock, compared to the ten or eleven percent overclocks we've previously seen on pre-overclocked GeForce GTX 280s, delivers only a very minor performance boost in comparison. The BFG GTX 280 OCX we reviewed a few weeks ago now sells for under £310, but even once the offer is over it will still be cheaper than the EVGA card. The BFG OCX includes not only a much larger core overclock than the EVGA card at 665MHz, but offers an identical ten year warranty and a far superior bundle, including everything you need for HDMI connectivity, the only thing it misses is EVGA's 90 day step up program. If it were our money, we’d get the BFG every time.


However, if you’ve been wanting a GeForce GTX 280 recently you’ll have noticed that the pricing situation of the both these and the GeForce GTX 260 series of cards is enormously fluid. EVGA might choose to drop prices next week, or another board partner might decide to undercut everyone else - such is the current state of the Nvidia graphics card market. A perfect example is the BFG GeForce GTX 280 OCX which we reviewed just two weeks ago and it’s now dropped nearly £50 in price! The value score we gave it then compared to what we would give it now would be very different.

As it stands though, the EVGA GeForce GTX 280 Superclocked, while offering a superb warranty and Step-up program, is going to struggle in the already congested market. EVGA can want its brand to carry a premium but at the end of the day the overclock on the card is minor and only translates to a one or two frames per second advantage over a stock card, compared to the four or five frame per second advantage of the higher overclocked cards, which can now be had for less money than EVGA are asking for the superclocked. It’s very hard to justify the price of the EVGA.

If the price was perhaps £20 cheaper this might be worth a look, but right now there are better options out there for those looking for an overclocked GTX 280, and the BFG GTX 280 OCX is still the best of the bunch, especially as prices have dropped to very tempting levels.

• Performance
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• 8/10

• Features
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• 8/10

• Value
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• -
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• 6/10

• Overall
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• -
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• 7/10

What do these scores mean?