Gigabyte GeForce GTX 260 Super Overclock

The Call of Duty series is one that needs no introduction. Although only six years old, CoD has already become a stature where both single-player and multi-player first-person shooters are concerned. From the series’ inception, each game has delivered stellar gameplay that totally engrosses you, thanks in part to creative levels, smart AI and realistic graphics.

World at War is officially the 5th game in the series, and while some hardcore fans claim that Treyarch is simply unable to deliver as high caliber a game as Infinity Ward, the title does do well to hold everyone over until Modern Warfare 2 hits (November 10, 2009). One perk is that World at War focuses on battles not exhausted in other war games, which helps to keep things fresh.

Manual Run-through: The level chosen for our testing is “Relentless”, one that depicts the Battle of Peleliu, which has American soldiers advance to capture an airstrip from the Japanese. The level is both exciting to play and incredibly hard on your graphics hardware, making it a perfect choice for our testing.

Given the pre-overclocked specs of Gigabyte’s card, it seemed obvious that it could keep up to the GTX 275, but so far, it’s actually managed to surpass its performance as well. Compared to a stock-clocked GTX 260, the Super Overclock proved 20% faster at 2560×1600. So what about it’s best-playable?

Well, not surprisingly, 40FPS is completely playable, so 4xAA at 2560×1600 is our choice. On the stock-clocked card, the highest detail settings are a bit too much, so Gigabyte managed to take us up to a new tier… something rarely seen by pre-overclocked cards.