EVGA 01G-P3-1280-RX GeForce GTX 280 1GB 512-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card

Pros: works fine. good performance.

Cons: had to RMA first card they sent. as with evga cards no solid state capacitors so lots of squealing. unstable for overclocking. would recommend bfg, xfx, and zotac cards over this one.

Manufacturer Response:

Hi,

This is not true, EVGA uses the highest quality components including solid capacitors.

Thanks,
Jacob

Pros: Beastly card, it can still handle any game out without overclocking it at all. Definitely a card that will last you a very long time.

Cons: When I move my mouse over to my steam messenger window the mouse glitches a little bit. It turns pink green and orange for maybe 1/3 of a second. Not much of a problem but its weird and only happens with this card.
When I got it it cost $450. Heavy as hell.

Other Thoughts: Its HUGE almost doesnt fit in my friends mid tower. PLENTY of room to spare in my full tower however. Turn that fan up to 70% at least if your playing a demanding game. I have a full tower with plenty of ventilation and I saw it get up to about 80C in several min. with the fan left at 40% so I would recommend you turn it up every time you play a game.

Pros: I bought 2 of these cards, Work beautifully, I play crysis at max settings all the time and have still not had any lock ups.
I was wary of buying Recertified but I figured I could return them if they were in bad shape, one of the cards looked brand new, the other one still looked pretty good.

Cons: The main thing I dont like about these cards... Heat, they truly are from hell, Burning Hot and Powerful; average gameplay temps on "GPU2" (one sitting closest to cpu) will average about 80C when room temps are about 80f, I recommend lots of fans and a BTX case, I have these SLI'd inside an ATX and that maybe a 5C degree difference, but dont be shocked when they hit 80C, Nvidia says these cards are allowed to go alot hotter and still remain perfectly reliable. I have run them at 82C for hours and they never lock up or lose frame rate. Oh and the sticker is falling off the one cards fan :( but thats my problem. these cards do not come with SLI bridges (2-way and 3-way) make sure your Mobo comes with them, if not take your friends extra ones.

Other Thoughts: If your looking to play Crysis@max spec your starting in the right place just 1 of these cards will get you 28fps with an average CPU and up to 34fps with an E8400 OC'd (I get 44fps with a Q9550@3.3Ghz with 2 cards) BTW CPU
clock is very important on SLI'd GTX 280s these cards have alot of potential! Don't bottle neck them with a low clocked CPU. Game on!

Pros: Eats anything I throw at it.

Cons: Card ran great for 6 days then died. Newegg RAMA'ed the card with no questions or hassles (<3 newegg) though now I'm wondering with such short warranty if I will be saving money or spending more in the long run. Time will tell.

Other Thoughts: This card is huge, running a P5k Premium mobo, had to change the SATAs to 90 degree ones just so the card would fit, as the back end falls over the SATA ports. Make sure you have room for this card on your mobo.

Pros: looks brand new,performs flawlessly...an excellent addition to my desktop i7 rig

Cons: none

Other Thoughts: I had previously purchased a recertified 260 card that i had issues with but EVGA promptly replaced it. That is why I didnt hesitate to buy this one.

Pros: Card performed as expected until(read Cons). It played Crysis at Gamer and Warhead at Enthusiast(but used Gamer myself.) Card was screaming awesome as a piece of hardware.

Cons: RMA'ed because inside of a month it suddenly crashed, locked up at boot to desktop, insane color crashing, card became unstable. This was after attaching a second monitor. No action remedied this once it began. Drivers, BIOS, single monitor, etc.

Second issue was that the seating where you put screws into the case to seat it were BENT. Literally crushed like someone hit it with a hammer. The little open one at the edge.

The sticker looked like it had been removed and replaced as it was misaligned and sticky and grimy where dust must have collected while it was gone. I strongly suspect my card was opened previously and tampered with by it's former owner not to mention the card was damaged and abused.

The card was wiped off, but dust was in cracks that I could blow out or dig out. It was obvious on a mild survey of the card. Had to have been used for a good long time in seriously dusty environment.

Other Thoughts: The value saved for an RMA seems pointless given that you get none of the other things that come with it. No connectors, no SLI bridge, nothing.

Pros: IT HAS A BIG DYE NEEDS ALOT OF POWER AMERICA ROCKS DONT GET A 45NM THIS IS A HEMI NOT A HONDA

Cons: NONE

Other Thoughts: POWER

Pros: Sweet. Fits onto my mobo with room to spare. Quiet fans. SLI mode works great; nice smooth graphics transition at the highest game settings without system overclocking. Pinnacle Studio 12 Ultimate renders DVD home movies quickly in SLI configuration. Inexpensive for the given quality and performance.

Cons: Mobo supports 3 PCI Express 16 slots in 16x, 1x and 16x configuration if all slots are used. These cards configure to 16x and 8x when used with a PCI Express 1 sound card in center slot, which is less than what the mobo actually supports. Temporarily removing the sound card results in the same SLI configuration, so has to be a design parameter of the cards and not the mobo according to the mobo users manual.

Other Thoughts: Wish my case had room for larger cards with more memory. Quad 3.0GHz AMD Phenom II X4 940 processor, 4G Corsair DDR2 1066 MHz RAM, 1,000 w Power Supply, 2 500G 3M/S data transfer rate Western Digital SATA drives in RAID configuration (full terrabyte of drive space), 7M/S data transfer rate Plextor DVD burner, Soundblaster X-Fi Titanium 7.1 surround sound soundcard on an ASUS M4N82 Deluxe mobo; ASUS 2ns refresh rate 21" LCD wide screen HDMI/DVI/VGA monitor and Logitech 5.1 surround sound satellite speakers on a powered subwoofer.

Pros: For the money 2 of these in sli will mow through hi-res games like a 295. One of them in an un sli-supported game will stomp the 295. A little overclocking with 1400 milion transistors each and things get even more unbelievable. Over the past ten years I have spent over 5k in video cards alone, but these are the only ones that leave me not wanting for any more. Kudos Nvidia!!!!!!!

Cons: Heat (need a real plan for case venilation).

Other Thoughts: Nvidia stole many of their great ideas from a little company I sunk alot of money in stock only to lose every single cent. I still don't know how it was legal to buy only the intellectual rights but not absorb the company that started it all: 3DFX Inc. If you don't know the story, read up on it and see how 3dfxs' technologies and ideas are still used today.

Pros: Tried to save a few bucks by going with a recertified gpu.

Cons: GPU works for a few minutes then shuts off showing red light on the top of it. If you plug it into a different rail on the power supply it will work again for a few minites. Power supply is a silverstone decathalon 1000watt and it pushes more than enpugh amps for the gpu.
Doesn't come with any paperwork or cables, not a huge deal, but come on........

Other Thoughts: I know i rolled the dice going with a recertified product, but overall i don't think it's worth the hassle.

Manufacturer Response:

Hi,

The red light indicates a PSU issue, do you have another powersupply you can use for testing?

Thanks,
Jacob