NVIDIA GTX295 Preview/Review

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Originally Posted by jasonelmore

Not many of us have a 30" Monitor. Not because we can't afford it but because of it's shear size and lag. 1920X1080 is the most important resolution. Those of you who want the 30" Monitor res's need to opt for something different.

The whole reason nvidia kept the frame buffer down instead of going with the 280's memory size and buffer, was to keep the voltage down. The extra memory would have put this card at over 320 watt TDP

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:up:
Same!
Bit-tech review
Fallout 3 : 1920x1200 8AA+16AF Max Detail
4870X2 78.9 avg 40.0 min
295GTX 80.0 avg 36.0 min
Farcry 2 : 1920x1200 4AA DX10 Ultra High (versus Very high for Hcanucks)
4870X2 63.4 avg 51.0 min
295 GTX 66.0 avg 48.0 min
Left For Dead : 1920x1200 8AA+16AF Max Detail
4870X2 99.6 avg
295GTX 105.5 avg
Crysis : 1920x1200 2AA+16AF DX10 Very High
4870X2 31.2 avg 18.0 min
295GTX 33.6 avg 21.0 min

Revolution! :ROTF:
Blah blah Frame buffer Nvidia = single fastest Nvidia card*, **

*but don't play on 30" monitor please
**don't max out eyes candies please

So what's your point of that post? Bitech has different bench's than the other 10 sites or what?

And you conviently left out Dead Space, COD world at war, Vantage, and all the other one's where nvidia wins by 10% or more

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Originally Posted by jasonelmore

So what's your point of that post? Bitech has different bench's than the other 10 sites or what?

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Which 10 other sites?
HardOCP review
http://enthusiast.hardocp.com/images...aZIrf2_3_2.gif
http://enthusiast.hardocp.com/images...aZIrf2_4_2.gif
http://enthusiast.hardocp.com/images...aZIrf2_5_2.gif

Dead Space and COD are not optmized yet by ATI. Vantage is a game? :D

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Originally Posted by SimBy

This card would be nice 5 moths ago. Way too late and not a whole lot better than X2. So basically it's a fail. I'll wait for the next gen from NV and ATI thank you.

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How is it a "fail"? Nvidia's mission was to take the performance crown and I am sure everyone agrees that they got it. They accomplished what they started working on. Quite much successful product for them.

Honestly, who believes that people who put $500 on the gfx alone care about price/performance? All they care is performance, hence the expensive(and damn fast!) rig. Somepeople think it is worth it to put +$200 to the card to have 10 FPS more, some believe it is best to put $400 to the whole rig and OC the hell out of it.

Just remember that this card will not sell much due to the high price and internal SLI wich brings quite a bit of actual problems which decrease the performance/gaming experience.

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Originally Posted by onethreehill

http://www.guru3d.com/article/geforce-gtx-295-preview/1
http://www.hardwarezone.com/articles...?cid=3&id=2770
http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/...y_performance/
http://enthusiast.hardocp.com/articl...50aHVzaWFzdA==
http://www.pcgameshardware.de/aid,67...l-Grafikkarte/
http://www.pcpop.com/doc/0/355/355395.shtml

http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=651
http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/forum...d-preview.html
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/...-295,2107.html
http://pctuning.tyden.cz/index.php?o...2266&Itemid=44

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These sites right here!

FiringSquad review with 8AA

http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/...s/cod41600.gif
http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/...es/cry1920.gif
http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/...s/vcry1920.gif
http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/...ance/page9.asp
http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/...es/far1920.gif

You buy a 500$ videocard and you tune your games to play :confused:

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Originally Posted by jasonelmore

These sites right here!

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You have the site so you can read review with more attention! Nvidia made big architectural mistakes with this card
.

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Originally Posted by Calmatory

...

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They barely take it back. Gap is very tiny...

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Originally Posted by SimBy

This card would be nice 5 moths ago. Way too late and not a whole lot better than X2. So basically it's a fail. I'll wait for the next gen from NV and ATI thank you.

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Because everybody already owns an X2? Why are so many people defending a card they don't even own. It's like supporting a football team or something where you don't benefit when they win. Last I checked this wasn't a sport though.....

The 295 is late to the game, the X2 has been king for months. But if it's cheaper, cooler and faster than the X2 then it doesn't really matter does it? Of course that's assuming that these cards won't be usurped by some single chip beast in 3 months which is always a possibility.

Looks like the performance is around what we expected it to be, back and forward between the 4870X2 and GTX295 in performance. Will be interesting to see how nVidia price it though as they have a tendancy to greatly inflate the price on GX2 variety cards due to the production costs involved in their stupidly designed dual PCB layout which i hope they ditch ASAP as its a pain for aftermarket cooling solutions.

Will also be interesting to see if ATI enable sideport on the 4870X2.

Luckily next round of GPUs are going to be with us soon so heres hoping that in the meantime both ATI and nVidia have been improving their designs for single GPU cards.

even if the final performance is equal which is not, nvidia has a better support on driver which ati is not so is a clearly win for nvidia :p:

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Originally Posted by trinibwoy

The 295 is late to the game, the X2 has been king for months. But if it's cheaper, cooler and faster than the X2 then it doesn't really matter does it? Of course that's assuming that these cards won't be usurped by some single chip beast in 3 months which is always a possibility.

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Who reads that will think that Gtx 295 is on the stores right now selling like hot cakes :rolleyes:

I have a secret: It will only appear by CES time = January ;)
Another: Q4 2008 is going to sell lot less then Q3 2008. Q1 2009 is going to sell much less then Q4 2008.
Nvidia cuted prodution in Q4 2008 by 25%, and will cut another 20% in Q1 2009. Make the Math:

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* Nvidia (NVDA): Q4 production down 25%, versus previous estimate of down 22%; with Q1 down another 20%.

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http://blogs.barrons.com/techtraderd...mand-crumbles/

Conclusion: This card whould be very good 6 months back, not in January. Now it will face a solid HD 4870X2 and a market going way down like hell. Christmas was the last chance to make a comeback.

The comeback only will come with 40nm and new arquitecture. Until then you have a market in deep recession and products that add nothing or very few to what already exists in the market for the last 6 months ;)

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Originally Posted by Blacky

even if the final performance is equal which is not, nvidia has a better support on driver which ati is not so is a clearly win for nvidia :p:

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Doesn't really help because Nvidia is too late to gain profits. HD 4870X2 came out in August, this hamburger is out in January, thats around one and half quarters late. And that is quite a lot when it comes to this industry. Besides, back in August people actually would spend some money, but not now.

But yeah, if just seeing Nvidia(applies to AMD aswell) on top again makes one happy... :rolleyes:

I'm ready to see how these babies fold. Swiftech or someone needs to make a really nice single loop block for these things.

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Originally Posted by Blacky

even if the final performance is equal which is not, nvidia has a better support on driver which ati is not so is a clearly win for nvidia :p:

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http://www.behardware.com/news/10005...quad-core.html
http://www.behardware.com/news/10011...n-q1-2009.html
Q1 09 drivers update by ATI will be interesting ;)

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Originally Posted by v_rr

Who reads that will think that Gtx 295 is on the stores right now selling like hot cakes :rolleyes:

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Reads what? Nothing in my post implies either of those things. Or are you just looking for a reason to defend the X2 again when it wasn't being attacked?

Not sure what point you're trying to make about the recession. Its effects affect all products including the X2. And you really don't want to start talking financials. Because as bad as things are for Nvidia they are in a vastly better situation than AMD at the moment.

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Originally Posted by maroon1

Gurus was using 180.88 Beta while hardwarecanucks was using 180.87 for GTX 295

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Previewers weren't supposed to use the 180.88 drivers since they introduced crashes to desktop in Fallout 3 among some issues with Crysis: WH. Makes you wonder how Guru even got Fallout 3 to launch let alone benchmark... :shakes:

i have the 180.88 and my fallout 3 works fine. but i only have a GTX 280

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Originally Posted by jasonelmore

i have the 180.88 and my fallout 3 works fine. but i only have a GTX 280

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.88 + GTX 295 didn't work in Fallout 3. This was actually confirmed directly from Nvidia to the reviewers which is why they rolled back the drivers we could use from 180.88 to 180.87. Basically, the second you enabled 4xAA, the game crashed to the desktop when you loaded a level.

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Originally Posted by Calmatory

Doesn't really help because Nvidia is too late to gain profits.

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I don't think they are realistically considering or aiming at profits, but stopping or slowing down erosion of profits, margins, market-share and mind-share is a viable and helpful option on the other hand.

It's simply a patch for a leak in their ship. Till GT 212 or GT 300 comes out.

Well at least its good to see ultimately GTX280's in SLI still reign as king!

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Originally Posted by Calmatory

Doesn't really help because Nvidia is too late to gain profits. HD 4870X2 came out in August, this hamburger is out in January, thats around one and half quarters late. And that is quite a lot when it comes to this industry. Besides, back in August people actually would spend some money, but not now.

But yeah, if just seeing Nvidia(applies to AMD aswell) on top again makes one happy... :rolleyes:

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My point of view was performance-wise tho, but I see your point ;) I also don't think nvidia made this card to gain profits, just for a marketing thing the only one affected here could be the 4870X2 since now it has a good contender, with same or less price tag (depends on ati brand) less consumption and better performance that combined with good drivers service is the winning combo :)!

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Originally Posted by AbelJemka

http://www.behardware.com/news/10005...quad-core.html
http://www.behardware.com/news/10011...n-q1-2009.html
Q1 09 drivers update by ATI will be interesting ;)

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Thats the problem you have to wait a while to solve any bugs or get a better performance (Deadspace for an example?) for your cards a month at least, and sometimes you gain nothing, nvidia driver service is undeniable better since they launch a driver weekly (or even daily sometimes) if they have to, you don't see that with ATI often :)

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Originally Posted by Ch3ck5um

Well at least its good to see ultimately GTX280's in SLI still reign as king!

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yes.... but not for long, only until someone release some quad SLi results.

Has anybody seen quad SLi results...?

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Originally Posted by PRJ

yes.... but not for long, only until someone release some quad SLi results.

Has anybody seen quad SLi results...?

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I think any other test from what we seen its under NDA...

Amasing how people still don't see the light here and defend their brand to hell and back... the card is equal or better than 4870X2 in some games, in other games it's worse... isn't that how it always was ?

They just wanted to get back the performance crown back, this for sure in benches and co... do you think they will want to sell this in big numbers, nah don't think so... Nvidia must be aware of the market too and the financial crisis will have it's repercussions on everyones sales... but at least admit that they gained good ground and are right on ATI's heels again and even surpassing the almighty X2... if you don't see that, well poor you as it will be useless to continue to reply to your posts... I don't need to put in ya name(s) as anyone knows here who's always in the green teams threds to troll... give it a rest guys jeez...

I never knew that the high ends sold like hot cakes... entry and medium range yes... 400 bucks plus nope... those are solely for the high end enthousiasts with big monitors and for benchers...

Good thing as ever, competition will have it's positive effect on prices again...

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Originally Posted by SKYMTL

Previewers weren't supposed to use the 180.88 drivers since they introduced crashes to desktop in Fallout 3 among some issues with Crysis: WH. Makes you wonder how Guru even got Fallout 3 to launch let alone benchmark... :shakes:

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Guru3d again? This tid-bit of info is good to know. In any case they are off my list! :D

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Originally Posted by Eastcoasthandle

Guru3d again? This tid-bit of info is good to know. In any case they are off my list! :D

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Why don't you just ask him on his forum how it got it to work or if he used different drivers?

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Originally Posted by Stukov

Why don't you just ask him on his forum how it got it to work or if he used different drivers?

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Because I am entitled to formulate an opinion based on my observations at any time deem necessary.

Whats a recommended power supply for 1 [and 2] ?

For 1 card a 650W PSu is recommended and for SLI i would take a good 1KW one.

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Originally Posted by Eastcoasthandle

Guru3d again? This tid-bit of info is good to know. In any case they are off my list! :D

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I was pointing out a general problem with the 180.88 drivers and the GTX 295. From what I know at least four sites including the one I write for had the same issue with Fallout 3.

gtx 295 very dissapointing for me considering only slightly better than 4870x2 not much in it and ati card been out a long while. oh well... will wait bit longer dont see point upgrading from gtx260-216 to this for the extra cash not worth it.

damm reviews all look copy pasted from eachother, where's microstuttering tests, noise,temperature,power usage, 754/amd/i7 differences, more games, where's gta4 tested ? etc.

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Originally Posted by Loque

damm reviews all look copy pasted from eachother, where's microstuttering tests, noise,temperature,power usage, 754/amd/i7 differences, more games, where's gta4 tested ? etc.

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Previews, not reviews.
Reviews will be out around 1-8-09.

I don't know why some of you guys seem so shocked at Nvidia's benchmark antics.

That's juts how they are and always have been. They like to look good, regardless of moral relativity.

These Previews are missing a few graphics configurations, not to mention PPP (BFB in Yankese):

GTX295 Quad-Sli (£700)
GTX260 2/3 SLi (£400/£600)
GTX260(II) 2/3 SLi (£440/£660)
GTX280 2/3 SLi (£600/£900)
4870 512MB 2/3-CFX (£360/£720) (can be done on EVGA x58)
4870 1GB 3-CFX (£600)
4850 1GB 2/3/4-CFX (£300/£450/£600)
4850 512MB 2/3/4-CFX (£240/£360/£480)
4830 2/3/4-CFX (£200/£300/£400)
4850x2 (£310)
4850x2 CFX (£410)
4870x2 CFX (£700)

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Originally Posted by Eastcoasthandle

Because I am entitled to formulate an opinion based on my observations at any time deem necessary.

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And we certainly don't want something as annoying as both sides of a story clouding our judgment.

Ok the way to see who is king is to compare 4870x2 august results from when it was first released to the 295's pre release results and you will see that the 295 will kick butt. The drivers for the 295 will have matured by end of JAN giving them easy %30 advantage over the 4870x2.

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Originally Posted by Chad Boga

And we certainly don't want something as annoying as both sides of a story clouding our judgment.

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Which is easy to post when none is given. But hey, an excuse justified by an excuse still equals an excuse.

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Originally Posted by X.T.R.E.M.E_ICE

giving them easy %30 advantage over the 4870x2.

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I wouldn't bet on it frankly.

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Originally Posted by Eastcoasthandle

Because I am entitled to formulate an opinion based on my observations at any time deem necessary.

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Even if it is wrong?

Looks like 2009 will be another year with complete nvidia dominance.

(just kidding)

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Originally Posted by Stukov

Even if it is wrong?

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That's the beauty of having an opinion. It's not about you thinking I'm wrong that's important to me but a personal view I have regarding the situation. But lets not get side tracked. This is off topic.

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Originally Posted by X.T.R.E.M.E_ICE

%30 advantage over the 4870x2.

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Hell yeah! Not only that, but it uses 50 less watts and is 10C cooler, and also has 250 more mhz overclocking headroom!

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Originally Posted by Dark-Energy

Hell yeah! Not only that, but it uses 50 less watts and is 10C cooler, and also has 250 more mhz overclocking headroom!

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Don't forget to mention that it also does cold fusion on your toast in the mornings.

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Originally Posted by Eastcoasthandle

That's the beauty of having an opinion. It's not about you thinking I'm wrong that's important to me but a personal view I have regarding the situation. But lets not get side tracked. This is off topic.

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I suppose we can drop it for the sake of the thread, however it is not about me thinking you are wrong, it is about forming an opinion without all the relevant facts. It is formulating a believed truth based on speculation when all you have to do is ask 1 question all could be clearned up with a misunderstanding.

In any case it's dropped and I have already asked the question for you.

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Originally Posted by Dark-Energy

Hell yeah! Not only that, but it uses 50 less watts and is 10C cooler, and also has 250 more mhz overclocking headroom!

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Wow some more facts about the 295. :toast2:

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Originally Posted by cegras

Don't forget to mention that it also does cold fusion on your toast in the mornings.

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I find that hard to believe.

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Originally Posted by Dark-Energy

has 250 more mhz overclocking headroom!

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Proof?

As for power consumption and temperature I'll wait till it's actually released to form an opinion because of this little comment by PCPerspective

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Just kidding. As I mentioned in our test configuration page, NVIDIA asked us to not put our final judgment to these cards noise levels and power consumption as they still might be adjusted with a firmware update before the CES launch period. My first impressions though put the GTX 295 in a good light with minimal noise (especially when compared to the fan on the HD 4870 X2 card at full speed) and power consumption on par with other dual-GPU solutions.

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I was being sarcastic, lol

Unfortunately, the numbers I mentioned did not include the extra 0

Heh, got me. :p:

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Originally Posted by X.T.R.E.M.E_ICE

Wow some more facts about the 295. :toast2:




I find that hard to believe.

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c'mon its not just graphic card thats what nvidia says :ROTF:

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Originally Posted by dan7777

gtx 295 very dissapointing for me considering only slightly better than 4870x2 not much in it and ati card been out a long while. oh well... will wait bit longer dont see point upgrading from gtx260-216 to this for the extra cash not worth it.

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Well at least for me, it performs as expected....

Its just 2x gtx280/260 mixture cores, shrunken, in one card... No mystery here, besides the weird mixture lol, but the performance can be easily estimated to what it is... Between gtx260 216 sli and gtx280 sli.

Its arguably a lil late to the party (my guess is manufacturing process delay, needed for thermal/cost reasons), but i disagree its just slightly better than the 4870x2...imo the difference is substantial (maybe not enough to warrant an upgrade tho). In the past months, drivers releases from both companies made alot of differences, so lets judge based on actual drivers.

Theres still Christmas sales, and all those who doesnt have fast cards yet...not all is lost for this card :). It will be awhile untill its dethroned.

Remember that its just low volume sales cutting edge parts... Its more about having the crown than anything, for name recognition. Financially speaking its not that meaningful on its own... but helps totals sales indirectly for nvidia being recognized as "number one".

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Originally Posted by Tonucci

Well at least for me, it performs as expected....

Its just 2x gtx280/260 mixture cores, shrunken, in one card....

Its arguably a lil late to the party (my guess is fabrication process delay), but i disagree its just slightly better than the 4870x2...imo the difference is substantial (maybe not enough to warrant an upgrade tho).

Theres still Christmas sales, and all those who doesnt have fast cards yet...not all is lost for this card :). It will be awhile untill its dethroned.

Remember that its just low volume sales cutting edge parts... Its more about having the crown than anything, for name recognition. Financially speaking its not that meaningful on its own... but helps totals sales indirectly for being recognized as "number one".

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It's nice (and unfortunately rare) to hear such an opinion, i think the same way too about this card.

I think it's time for SIDEPORT to be enabled:D

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Originally Posted by Varsos

I think it's time for SIDEPORT to be enabled:D

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:ROTF:

:clap:

it looks like a chock:eek:

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Originally Posted by Varsos

I think it's time for SIDEPORT to be enabled:D

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Send that to mythbusters.:rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl:

If ATI could enable sideport they would of already.

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Originally Posted by X.T.R.E.M.E_ICE

Send that to mythbusters.:rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl:

If ATI could enable sideport they would of already.

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They've said they could if they wanted, just that there is no point.

Interview with AMD's Eric Demers

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R3D: Now that we've started touching sensitive topics, can we find out what's up with the interconnect? Why is it disabled? Are naysayers correct in stating that it's up to the AIB whether or not the traces for it get built into the PCB, and that it's likely to not be enabled?

Eric: The sideport interconnect is fully functional in the reference design. Though we've found that with the current AFR mode of multi-GPU support, the additional bandwidth brought by the interconnect does not translate to a significant improvement in performance. However, we are continuously working on optimizing how our ATI CrossFireX™ technology scales and trying different methods, and could decide to enable the sideport if a method is found which gives better results and benefits from it.

R3D: So what happened? How did a good idea stop being a good idea? Are you disabling it due to heat/power concerns?

Eric: It's still a good idea...you have to consider that we've been working on Crossfire and on our AFR implementation for quite a few years, optimizing it. It's actually gotten to a point where it's really quite good, and difficult to improve upon performance-wise. As for heat and power concerns, that's hardly the case...the interconnect is pretty much an extra PCIE2.0 link. The power draw for that is in the realm of a few watts at most. The only reason for which it's not enabled currently is, as I've already mentioned, that it does not significantly impact performance ... and if you're not using something there's no point in enabling it.

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Originally Posted by fornowagain

They've said they could if they wanted, just that there is no point.

Interview with AMD's Eric Demers

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That's just like selling a Ferrari and Locking out the top gear because there is no need for it as then it would be too fast. I don't beleive ATI had/have the ability to unlock it unless they have a new version of the card.

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Originally Posted by X.T.R.E.M.E_ICE

That's just like selling a Ferrari and Locking out the top gear because there is no need for it as then it would be too fast. I don't beleive ATI had/have the ability to unlock it unless they have a new version of the card.

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Right oh, one of the founding ATI design Managers (Sireric) is flat out lying. Lol, fair enough.

And what he's saying is the 6th gear of your Ferrari is not much different to the 5th, so there's no point having it.

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Originally Posted by fornowagain

Right oh, one of the founding ATI design Managers (Sireric) is flat out lying. Lol, fair enough.

And what he's saying is the 6th gear of your Ferrari is not much different to the 5th, so there's no point having it.

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Yes and Yes. Nvidia lie as well.

Like I said, fair enough. You believe what you want, I'll stick to what I can actually read.

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Originally Posted by fornowagain

Like I said, fair enough. You believe what you want, I'll stick to what I can actually read.

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Sideport is useless as that ati guy said. But it if funny how people say wait until sideport gets enabled blah blah blah. I won't beleive it untill i see proof that it exist. The guy sounds just as reliable as FUD.

yes i am a nvidia fanboy and my last 4 cards were ati 2 4870x2's and 2 4870's.

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Originally Posted by X.T.R.E.M.E_ICE

Sideport is useless as that ati guy said. But it if funny how people say wait until sideport gets enabled blah blah blah. I won't beleive it untill i see proof that it exist. The guy sounds just as reliable as FUD.

yes i am a nvidia fanboy and my last 4 cards were ati 2 4870x2's and 2 4870's.

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+1 :up:

lolsideport story is getting old...

Think I'd buy this one if it had more memory... apparently its still not future card enough according to rockstair to play gtaiv at maximum settings :p

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Originally Posted by Loque

Think I'd buy this one if it had more memory... apparently its still not future card enough according to rockstair to play gtaiv at maximum settings :p

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You mean GTA 4 code can't handle 295. lol.

well... if gtx295 cant play GTA4 at max settings then theres something very wrong. can someone tell me whats best resolution out of 1920x1080 or 1920x1200 ??? thnx in advance.

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Originally Posted by dan7777

well... if gtx295 cant play GTA4 at max settings then theres something very wrong. can someone tell me whats best resolution out of 1920x1080 or 1920x1200 ??? thnx in advance.

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Every one knows that GTA 4 has bad coding and won't run at max on any setup. That what i keep reading. But people do have the tendency to lie.

I can say this 295 is better from what these tests have shown, but then I think someone should voltmod both cards and get them on water and that is the performance I will judge by.

also ATI driver still arent using quad core right and once 9.1 / 9.2 does this then we will still not have seen the full potential of these 4870x2.

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Originally Posted by SKYMTL

I was pointing out a general problem with the 180.88 drivers and the GTX 295. From what I know at least four sites including the one I write for had the same issue with Fallout 3.

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Thanks for the tip. Looks like another site I am going to be wary off from now on.

Speaking of that I don't even know whether [H]ocp is trustworthy enough anymore. All of a sudden in the space of two months or two catalyst driver revisions 4870x2 gone from unable to run Warhead at 1920x1200 with aa
http://www.hardocp.com/images/articl...6dudh3_3_1.gif


to running Warhead with 4xaa generating same min but slightly smaller avg fps.
http://enthusiast.hardocp.com/images...aZIrf2_5_2.gif

Does [H] have a policy in which they deliberatly mislead consumers about Ati top of the line gpu performance in order to sell more top of the line nvidia cards or did Ati drivers really improve that much and no one noticed?

well the "unable" review is from Oct. 20 2008, its now dec 21 2008. Im sure a few driver revisions happened and helped with that.

I find it strange that people use hardocp as evidence against NV for this round. But those very same people also say Hardocp is not a credible website because it is so pro nvidia.

Not trying to troll, but hardocp, seems like the only website not excited about this card.

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Originally Posted by tajoh111

I find it strange that people use hardocp as evidence against NV for this round. But those very same people also say Hardocp is not a credible website because it is so pro nvidia.

Not trying to troll, but hardocp, seems like the only website not excited about this card.

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Go by the FPS vs time graphs....if you trust their number that is lol

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Originally Posted by Tonucci

Go by the FPS vs time graphs....if you trust their number that is lol

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They seem to conclude that the 295 is framebuffer limited :shrug:

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Originally Posted by tajoh111

I find it strange that people use hardocp as evidence against NV for this round. But those very same people also say Hardocp is not a credible website because it is so pro nvidia.

Not trying to troll, but hardocp, seems like the only website not excited about this card.

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Bit-Tech are not too and half reserved final conclusion for final review.
Moreover only Bit-Tech and Hardocp speak about limited framebuffer which cause the card performance to die when resolution and eyes candies are increased :confused:.

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Originally Posted by munim

They seem to conclude that the 295 is framebuffer limited :shrug:

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^ yeah, its all about the memory, always has been imo.
imagine one day you can buy a card with only the chip on it, and you buy "graphic ram sticks" seperately and install them in their specific slots, you can have memory for the graphics as much as you like

now thats innovation :D

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Originally Posted by munim

They seem to conclude that the 295 is framebuffer limited :shrug:

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Thats what Im saying, dont go with their opinion/conclusions or comments. The graphs seems to show an different reality than the one portrayed by the author imo.

lol they had videocards with upgradable ram slots, won't happen again and for good reason.

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Originally Posted by postumus

lol they had videocards with upgradable ram slots, won't happen again and for good reason.

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fact :fact:

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First preview tests of Nvidia's Geforce GTX 295 went online yesterday (amongst others at PC Games Hardware). Today we will present a few detailed pictures of the Dual GPU card.

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http://www.pcgameshardware.com/aid,6...cture_gallery/

one fugly design wonder what will happen if you put just one card lol

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Originally Posted by Salsoolo

^ yeah, its all about the memory, always has been imo.
imagine one day you can buy a card with only the chip on it, and you buy "graphic ram sticks" seperately and install them in their specific slots, you can have memory for the graphics as much as you like

now thats innovation :D

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Kinda like upgradable RAID cards with onboard DIMM slots...good idea!
More to that...how about a graphics board with a socketable GPU?...new kit comes out, just pop out the old GPU and in with the new one :D

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Originally Posted by Richard Dower

Kinda like upgradable RAID cards with onboard DIMM slots...good idea!
More to that...how about a graphics board with a socketable GPU?...new kit comes out, just pop out the old GPU and in with the new one :D

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the socketable gpu is amazing.
i meant graphic memory slots on the motherboard itself, just like the normal ram.
but your input is great too.

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GTX295 SLi on Core i7 Platform Scores P32573 on 3DMark Vantage

The guys over at Xfastest have been hard at work testing out the upcoming NVIDIA GeForce GTX295 graphics card based on a dual GT200 GPU setup. For this particular setup they have got two said graphics cards for a quad-SLi arrangement on an Asus Rampage II Extreme, featuring an Intel Core i7 Extreme 965 overclocked to 4.19Ghz. The graphics cards were overclocked to 705Mhz (core), 1480Mhz (shader), 1250Mhz (memory). The test was run on 3DMark Vanatage's Performance setting and gave a GPU score of 35711, leading to a total score of P32573. These scores look promising as the tests have been run on pre-release drivers which will not yet be fully optomized, if you want to try out these drivers, they can be found here, obviously these are pre-release beta drivers, so use them at your own risk.

http://www.techpowerup.com/img/08-12...32k_01_thm.jpg http://www.techpowerup.com/img/08-12...32k_02_thm.jpg http://www.techpowerup.com/img/08-12...32k_03_thm.jpg

TechConnect XFastest


http://www.techpowerup.com/79657/GTX...k_Vantage.html

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:up:

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Originally Posted by Tonucci

Thats what Im saying, dont go with their opinion/conclusions or comments. The graphs seems to show an different reality than the one portrayed by the author imo.

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But the graphs in the apples to apples section showed the 4870x2 besting the 295 @ high AA at high res.

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Originally Posted by munim

But the graphs in the apples to apples section showed the 4870x2 besting the 295 @ high AA at high res.

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yeah....the 4870x2 won most tests at 25xx res and 8x AA. Small difference and unplayable FPS tho... Looks like their AA scalling and a lil more Vmem makes a difference under such conditions.


But imo its not very representative......in the other tests with 1920 res and below the 295 was impressive. Even with 8x AA. With 4x AA the diff grows more in 295 favor :yepp:

290W... damn... :eek:
and i remember when reviewers and users complained the 9800xt cards with 80W tdp were too hot ^^
wait, i actually remember when gpus didnt even need a heatsink at all :eek:
i feel old now :D

very interesting, almost the same clocks as single gtx280 cards there!
the heatsink looks a bit weird...

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Originally Posted by Tonucci

yeah....the 4870x2 won most tests at 25xx res and 8x AA. Small difference and unplayable FPS tho... Looks like their AA scalling and a lil more Vmem makes a difference under such conditions.


But imo its not very representative......in the other tests with 1920 res and below the 295 was impressive. Even with 8x AA. With 4x AA the diff grows more in 295 favor :yepp:

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Yeah this is one of the times you have to look at the resolution you plan to game at. If you're not running at 2560x1600 8xAA the memory wall isn't very relevant. Although this might start to creep down into lower resolutions as future games use more memory for textures and other assets.

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Originally Posted by saaya

wait, i actually remember when gpus didnt even need a heatsink at all :eek:
i feel old now :D

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These were not GPU's...

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Originally Posted by saaya

290W... damn... :eek:
and i remember when reviewers and users complained the 9800xt cards with 80W tdp were too hot ^^
wait, i actually remember when gpus didnt even need a heatsink at all :eek:
i feel old now :D

very interesting, almost the same clocks as single gtx280 cards there!
the heatsink looks a bit weird...

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remember when we were using a 2d primary display card with a secondary 3d accelerator card ;) Gosh was 3DFX some great times...I still remember first time I played Turok! Boy was it amazing back then!

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Originally Posted by trinibwoy

Although this might start to creep down into lower resolutions as future games use more memory for textures and other assets.

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Its one possibility...But the mem difference is soo small... Lets wait and see how near future games behave. Looks like 25xx res with 8x AA is an wall for current cards in new games...even the x2....The x2 fares a lil better under such conditions but its totally unplayable too. Higher BW and a bit better AA scaling may be helping too.

But when we look at 1920 res (even w/ 8x AA) the GTX295 is a friggin monster in most games.

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Originally Posted by Nedjo

These were not GPU's...

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really? because i have an old PCI Videocard that has no heatsinks on it. :shrug:

This card is going to be stupid rediculously priced... not worth the money. I guess its good its comming out since it will shuve the price of the 4870x2 down.

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Originally Posted by Nedjo

These were not GPU's...

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alot of people hanging onto their voodoo cards are crying right now

hold out 4 Q2-Q3 GTX260-216 will do til then nothing realy worth the jump to pay the extra money 4

Looks like the GTX 295 uses Hynix 0.8ns ICs:

http://img168.imageshack.us/img168/4...3245090vq8.jpg

Hynix H5A85223CFR GDDR3-N0C




Aluminum heatsink is manufactured by CoolerMaster:


http://img140.imageshack.us/img140/7...3244080rw7.jpg


TM70 NV
P/N: 095-0070-004



Source: http://74.125.19.101/translate_c?hl=en&sl=zh-CN&tl=en&u=http://www.hkepc.com/2147/page/3&usg=ALkJrhhyp8O1kvdvW3YeruRNpRL3fxCQxA#view

wow. 2x gpu & only one pcb.. 'bout bloody time

2 pcb, dude^^

High tdp and 2 tightly fit board with 1 that looks like it wont even have a cooler...

Seems like suicide to me...I have a feeling it's going to have 4870x2 like temps.

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wow. 2x gpu & only one pcb.. 'bout bloody time

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2 pcb, the cooling system is sandwiched between them.