One of the most interesting graphics your money can buy you right now is the GeForce GTX 260 series. These cards are virtually in the high-end segment, yet performance for money wise they are just astounding.

NVIDIA knows this, and as such ever since the release of the original GTX 260, there have been numerous internal updates to this product, to make it faster, more efficient and most of all cheaper. See, the GTX 260 opens up a truckload of performance and features. A couple of weeks ago NVIDIA launched another SKU based off that GTX 260; it was the Core 216 version, carrying an additional 24 shader processors, to give the card a little more bite.

• 192 cores on the GeForce GTX 260
• 216 cores on the GeForce GTX 260 Core 216
• 240 of them on the GeForce GTX 280.

Weeks after that GTX 206 Core 216 release (in December 2008) NVIDIA again changed this SKU a little bit, introducing a cheaper to manufacture 55nm version of the GTX 260 chip.

As a result you can purchase GTX 260 Core 216 version card now for 249 - 299 USD, and if you do a little research, there are often rebates going on, allowing prices of anywhere in-between 229 to 269 USD. Granted, it's still a lot of money to just play games, but I guarantee you the GTX 260 series offers incredible performance and features (next to the Radeon 4870) for the money, especially when you realize these cards were introduced with a 399 USD price tag in the summer of 2008.

After all of these changes in the product roadmap, we really didn't expect NVIDIA's board partners to change a lot about these boards, as they are already great, silent, efficient, and definitely fast. So, two weeks ago a press-release from Palit arrived in my inbox. They are releasing the GeForce GTX 260 Core 216 Sonic edition graphics cards .. and after reading the specification I was like .. OMG could this product get any better?

With the Palit GeForce GTX 260 Sonic SP216 edition, we believe a GTX 260 graphics card can't get any better. Why? Get this; custom board design, 896MB GDDR3 memory, 216 Shader processor version, custom dual-fan cooler, custom higher clock frequencies and due to that cooler, immense overclocking capabilities.

Yea, we just caught your attention didn't we? Have a quick peak at the product, and then head on over to the next page, where we'll startup this in-depth review.