The Leadtek 280 Extreme

TheGamingGeneral · 13 Jul 2008 at 17:19

The Leadtek 280 Extreme (GT200b?)

There is an article on techpowerup stating that the extreme card on the OC website from leadtek does not appear on the leadtek website and there is a bit of confusion as to what it actually is? The clock speed on it as am sure many of you know is pretty high, even for an enthusiastic overclocker, so I was wondering if what tech say has any validity?

A suspicious new model of the flagship GeForce GTX 280 made by Leadtek going by the name ‘GeForce GTX 280 Extreme’ is put on pre-order on the popular British computer component online store Overclockers UK (OCUK). It can be found here. There are some hints that point toward this being based on a 55nm core:

Extremely high parameters such as 738 MHz core, 1666 MHz shader domain and 2520 MHz memory albeit GDDR3, traditionally Leadtek doesn’t offer such high manufacturer overclock for even its premium variants.

Such insanely high parameters cannot be reached by a manufacturer on reference cooling, for example, even the EVGA e-GeForce GTX 280 HC (liquid-cooled) comes with 670 MHz core, 1458MHz shader domain and 2430 MHz memory.

The Leadtek website neither has a product entry for this nor is it part of any of their press-releases leading us to believe it’s an upcoming product. With such parameters, it only puzzles us if it indeed is the GT200b making for ‘UFO sightings’ in the markets.

http://www.techpowerup.com/65577/GT2...t_Stores?.html

Any mod want to comment (or point me to somewhere it was commented on)? Thanks a lot

Martyn

Talrinys · 13 Jul 2008 at 17:32

GeneralD said:
There is an article on techpowerup stating that the extreme card on the OC website from leadtek does not appear on the leadtek website and there is a bit of confusion as to what it actually is? The clock speed on it as am sure many of you know is pretty high, even for an enthusiastic overclocker, so I was wondering if what tech say has any validity?

http://www.techpowerup.com/65577/GT2...t_Stores?.html

Any mod want to comment (or point me to somewhere it was commented on)? Thanks a lot

Martyn

It has already been said in the Leadtek thread that they are just the absolute best of the speed binned chips. Which of course leaves a lot of good stuff to come

Dr_Fartypants · 13 Jul 2008 at 17:40

Talrinys said:
It has already been said in the Leadtek thread that they are just the absolute best of the speed binned chips.

Not by anyone of authority though

I was the one that said that, but it was purely an assumption. I still can't imagine that they are actually the 55nm chips, since I can't see nvidia just releasing them at the same clockspeeds. But who knows. It's certainly possible...

We won't know until someone gets one and takes off the heatsink to have a look at the GPU.

Locky · 13 Jul 2008 at 18:29

I cant see leadtek reaching them clocks, wouldnt be good if they cant, with all them pre-orders.

Talrinys · 13 Jul 2008 at 18:38

Dr_Fartypants said:
Not by anyone of authority though

I was the one that said that, but it was purely an assumption. I still can't imagine that they are actually the 55nm chips, since I can't see nvidia just releasing them at the same clockspeeds. But who knows. It's certainly possible...

We won't know until someone gets one and takes off the heatsink to have a look at the GPU.

They definitely would make a bigger fuss about it though, and they would be cheaper?

Dr_Fartypants · 13 Jul 2008 at 18:46

Talrinys said:
They definitely would make a bigger fuss about it though, and they would be cheaper?

I would have thought they would have 'made a fuss', but perhaps they are planning a proper 'ultra' type model for release with the r700, and have been letting some of the spare GT200b cores go to manufacturers like leadtek in the meantime.

Just speculating here - I still think that they will turn out to be just cherry-picked 65nm cores.

Talrinys · 13 Jul 2008 at 19:17

Dr_Fartypants said:
I would have thought they would have 'made a fuss', but perhaps they are planning a proper 'ultra' type model for release with the r700, and have been letting some of the spare GT200b cores go to manufacturers like leadtek in the meantime.

Just speculating here - I still think that they will turn out to be just cherry-picked 65nm cores.

That could very well be, and they're waiting cause of course everyone would stop buying the 65nm ones. Speed binned cards really does sound the logical explanation though.

fornowagain · 13 Jul 2008 at 19:32

Going by the Zoltac AMP!, this is just a step further binned. The shader clock is literally impossible as an actual figure anyway.

Monkeynut · 13 Jul 2008 at 19:34

Who knows, they could be lower-end binned 55nm cores?

All will be revealed upon power usage.

Bobly · 13 Jul 2008 at 22:13

It's a shame they cherry pick the nice ones because that means that if you don't pay the premium for an overclocked card, you're likely to get one that doesn't OC well :/

Dr_Fartypants · 13 Jul 2008 at 22:28

Bobly said:
It's a shame they cherry pick the nice ones because that means that if you don't pay the premium for an overclocked card, you're likely to get one that doesn't OC well :/

My thoughts exactly! Although, so few cards will reach 738mhz normally. So, at least with the leadtek cards all you're guaranteeing is that you won't get an uber-clocking card. It should still be possible to get anything below about the 99th percentile.

rounddodger · 13 Jul 2008 at 23:13

Yep the Leadtek clocks are incredible but I'm happy with what I got for a stock card, I could prob get more, I've done upto 722/1544/2600 so very close but backed it off to 700/1511/2600 to be safe as I've had a couple artifacts in Crysis at that speed. Now it's just spot on.

Talrinys · 13 Jul 2008 at 23:45

rounddodger said:
Yep the Leadtek clocks are incredible but I'm happy with what I got for a stock card, I could prob get more, I've done upto 722/1544/2600 so very close but backed it off to 700/1511/2600 to be safe as I've had a couple artifacts in Crysis at that speed. Now it's just spot on.

That really is good, would be quite a fantastic overclock for folding purposes, can't wait to see if 55nm cards will get even higher

The_Abyss · 14 Jul 2008 at 09:34

I would doubt this is a 55nm card, as the GTX+ hasn't even surfaced yet.

Gibbo · 14 Jul 2008 at 10:42

HI there

Have spoken to Leadtek about clarification and when we can get some stock, they are coming back to me. I am inclined to agree and have doubts over the clock speeds but if Leadtek can pull this off then kudos to them for doing so.

555BUK · 14 Jul 2008 at 10:44

Clocks see too high for normal speed binning. Factory overclocked cards do not tend to be sold at speeds above what can normally be reached with stock card overclocking. Leadtek have to build in a safety margin, and this looks like new silicon to me.

balth_dire · 14 Jul 2008 at 12:34

I don't like to give biased views but the only company that has consistently made good by their factory over clocked cards in my experience has been EVGA. I've used between 5-10 over the past 3/4 years and none has ever displayed any signs of weakness.

By comparison, 2 out of 3 XFX cards I've owned have artifacted out of the box. Can't give a view on BFG, though forum feedback regarding their OC2 and OCX cards suggests quite a high failrate and several reviews of Zotac's AMP range indicate there is very little, if any headroom - and this is with the review samples! I'm always very dubious about the testing methods employed to verify these OCs . In most cases, I'd imagine that they're conducted on an open bench, involve only one card at a time and no more than handful of synthetic benchmarks, thus conveniently omitting many obstacles likely to be encountered during "real world" use.

Dr_Fartypants · 14 Jul 2008 at 12:47

Talrinys said:
That really is good, would be quite a fantastic overclock for folding purposes

Yep - it really is a good overclock

I certainly can't get to 700mhz stable. Over about 660mhz in Crysis I get some artifacting

Dr_Fartypants · 14 Jul 2008 at 12:51

Gibbo said:
HI there

Have spoken to Leadtek about clarification and when we can get some stock, they are coming back to me. I am inclined to agree and have doubts over the clock speeds but if Leadtek can pull this off then kudos to them for doing so.

It would be nice to have a firm clarification one way or the other

After all, the product seems to be generating external press now (which I guess is good for you whatever else happens). Congrats on getting exclusive access to a unique product!

I'm a bit confused though - you had 11/07 as the ETA date for the past week, and yet you still don't know from Leadtek when they can release any stock, or even if the clock speeds are accurate? :confused:

How can you have been expecting stock right up until Friday in this situation?

jarvo1 · 14 Jul 2008 at 13:25

Dr_Fartypants said:
It would be nice to have a firm clarification one way or the other After all, the product seems to be generating external press now (which I guess is good for you whatever else happens). Congrats on getting exclusive access to a unique product!

I'm a bit confused though - you had 11/07 as the ETA date for the past week, and yet you still don't know from Leadtek when they can release any stock, or even if the clock speeds are accurate? How can you have been expecting stock right up until Friday in this situation?

+1

I'll be looking forward to that info too, got a couple of Extreme's on pre-order here taking OCUK's word that the clockspeeds had been confirmed already seeing as they were listed on the site.....