NVIDIA GTX295 Preview/Review

[Warboy]

Dead Space doesn't have a CF profile, so GTX295 is 12% faster overall 1900x1200 16+8 than 4870x2

6 months later, doesn't look good

com'on, when you quote a post with images, change the IMG tags to URL! It's annoying.

*ON TOPIC*

SKYMTL, Thanks for your answer. Do you think it's possible to run the could using modded 181.00 drivers?

[jam2k]

Can't you just rename the exe to fix that? or something, I've heard about fixes for that.

Yeah, sure you can.

I don't own the game so I can't try myself

[eric66]

Wow, The GTX295 owns in Deadspace.

Can any of you guys test it with a Modded 181.00 drivers?

i wonder how long will it take ati to notice that difference

[jasonelmore]

Looks sweet as hell. I love it. I wonder how these things will fold. Any news on how Quad SLI will scale? Hopeuflly better than the 9800 GX2.. I've already got a grand saved up for these bad boys. I ordered a FSP 5 1/4 Supplimental PSU for the second card haha

[jam2k]

com'on, when you quote a post with images, change the IMG tags to URL! It's annoying.

*ON TOPIC*

SKYMTL, Thanks for your answer. Do you think it's possible to run the could using modded 181.00 drivers?

Fixed

[jasonelmore]

ATI's known for hotfix's.. Theyll fix the Dead space but i have a feeling they still wont even come close. Ati's 1600 shaders do one instruction set at a time. Nvidia's 480 Shaders do 5 instruction sets at a time.

[jam2k]

Actually, when you look at the difference between a single HD 4870 1GB and the X2, it is evident that there is a CF profile in place. The issue is that the game itself doesn't run at particularly high framerates on ATI hardware.

Sometimes a title may scale poorly, due to default AFR profile.

What we need is an optimized profile

[Calmatory]

People these days don't seem to understand the difference between a preview and an actual review. If this was a review where the final conclusion was based off of the performance of 5 Nvidia-picked games, you would definately have something to complain about. However, not one of the previews I have read comes to any firm conclusions; just impressions based on the limited testing they were able to conduct.

As a wise and respectet reviewer you must understand that people base their conclusions in the graphs more than in the text reviewer writes. I am quite sure that you agree with me that all the graphs really give is an ilusion of a fast card. And as the games are picked by Nvidia, it gives false illusion of actual performance. It makes it look better than it does. And I shall repeat that people look at the graphs. And I also repeat that I understand this kind of act (of desperation, as ATI calls it) from Nvidia, quite cheap & good PR.

Afterall, the performance the graphs show is better than what people will get.

[JohnJohn]

No power consumption numbers.. is that in nDA ?

[Macadamia]

ATI's known for hotfix's.. Theyll fix the Dead space but i have a feeling they still wont even come close. Ati's 1600 shaders do one instruction set at a time. Nvidia's 480 Shaders do 5 instruction sets at a time.

/FACEPALM

[Warboy]

Fixed

Thank you.

[jam2k]

From [H]

The GeForce GTX 295 is coming, but with a bit less bang than NVIDIA had probably hoped for. It has a performance advantage in FarCry 2 but loses that performance advantage in Fallout 3, a game we know a lot of people are playing this holiday season. Albeit the GTX 295 does not suffer some of the graphical bugs that plague the 4870 X2 in Fallout 3 that give the true gaming advantage to the GTX 295. While it may not have won the performance crown in every game here today, it did manage to match the Radeon HD 4870 X2 for the highest playable in-game settings in each game we tested.

NVIDIA has definitely made this a worthy competitor to the Radeon HD 4870 X2. But in no way is this a “4870 X2 killer.” From our narrow look here today with what is likely to be an immature driver set, the GTX 295 is matching the 4870 X2 in gameplay. Maybe it will best it in a month, but I would not bet on it.

The GeForce GTX 295 is a nice evolution of the GTX 200 series, and offers up some new configuration possibilities, but will it really be a preferred gaming card when you can get two 216 Core GeForce GTX 260’s (with higher clocks) for a combined price that is lower than a GTX 295? And SLI can now be had on Intel chipset motherboards? And it seems that the 4870 X2 is a bit better bet in terms of AA looking forward?

Time will tell, and we have much more testing to do before we can make any final conclusions.

[AbelJemka]

ATI's known for hotfix's.. Theyll fix the Dead space but i have a feeling they still wont even come close. Ati's 1600 shaders do one instruction set at a time. Nvidia's 480 Shaders do 5 instruction sets at a time.

So ATI is pretty impressive to stay close of Nvidia with a so huge gap in power

[jasonelmore]

No they just have different architecture's. Do the research before you start this

[Blacky]

the 1 million question for reviewers:

- Does the GTX 295 joins the Microstuttering club?

[eric66]

they won't test it until review i think or until nvidia allows them

[Macadamia]

No they just have different architecture's. Do the research before you start this

He was being sarcastic. Technically you're still wrong.

[SKYMTL]

As a wise and respectet reviewer you must understand that people base their conclusions in the graphs more than in the text reviewer writes. I am quite sure that you agree with me that all the graphs really give is an ilusion of a fast card. And as the games are picked by Nvidia, it gives false illusion of actual performance. It makes it look better than it does. And I shall repeat that people look at the graphs. And I also repeat that I understand this kind of act (of desperation, as ATI calls it) from Nvidia, quite cheap & good PR.

Afterall, the performance the graphs show is better than what people will get.

I agree to a certain extent but let me step out of my reviewer's shoes for a second here and take a personal approach to this.

I don't count myself as a "gamer" by any stretch of the imagination since I still play the original Homeworld quite often due to the fact it is...well...fun. New games don't really hold much sway for me due to the simple fact that many have the "been there, seen that" feel to them. The newer games I usually play through once to find a suitable benchmarkable area and then let the collect dust between reviews.

However, some of these "Top 5" games have actually held my attention for longer than usual. I find myself playing Fallout 3, CoD: WaW, L4D and even Dead Space more than I normally would. Why? Because they are actually pretty decent games.

Just because Nvidia chose to put their name all over their performance numbers doesn't diminish the fact that the are all quite popular. Indeed, even if these weren't part of Nvidia's "list", I would still probably be including them in the reviews for the sole reason of their popularity and pure enjoyment.

On the flip side of things, assuming a reviewer will go out of his way to try to find some games which perform better on ATI hardware is expecting the impossible. Sure, Clear Sky and X4 seem to benefit ATI but other than that, Nvidia seems to have a choke hold on most newly released and upcoming games. This means that reviews will naturally slant towards Nvidia when games are first released. That doesn't make the p/reviews biased in any way, shape or form; it tells the actual story of Nvidia working directly with developers while ATI needs to go through one or two driver revisions before they get performance nailed down in some popular games. That is the reality of the situation and it would be dishonest for the reviewers to not tell the story as we see it.

[GAR]

We all know, that Crysis is NVIDIA friendly game :P
The performance difference between 4870X2 and GTX295 isn't that big, when we keep in mind how late is the new sandwich. It IS the fastest card, but too late. Now we are waiting to see if ATi have something hidden with the Side Port.

Too late? Ati wont have anything till Q2 2009, its not late at all. Nvidia is in good position right now, with the GTX 285 and new GTX 260 coming out, they should be in good shape.

[WhiskeyAlpha]

Bit-tech have their preview up here, using cat 8.12s for the ATi models. I like their transparency regarding the Nvidia restrictions.

Looks like the GTX295 just about holds it's head up over the 4870X2, though it seems to be limited by memory bandwidth tbh. I'm sure a little bump on those memory clocks will make the world of difference at high res with lots of AA.

[Kaldor]

Meh, when your pushing 100fps, whats the real difference between 100 and 105. Nothing your eyes can see. The reviews show that ATI still does take the win with hi-res, hi-AA, hi-detail benchmarks. The Nvidia card seems much more at home with a little less AA.

Interesting card, but I wish Nvidia would have dumped the sandwich design. I wont be buying one. My ATI 4850s on my 22" LCD are plenty.

[Calmatory]

I agree to a certain extent but let me step out of my reviewer's shoes for a second here and take a personal approach to this.

I don't count myself as a "gamer" by any stretch of the imagination since I still play the original Homeworld quite often due to the fact it is...well...fun. New games don't really hold much sway for me due to the simple fact that many have the "been there, seen that" feel to them. The newer games I usually play through once to find a suitable benchmarkable area and then let the collect dust between reviews.

However, some of these "Top 5" games have actually held my attention for longer than usual. I find myself playing Fallout 3, CoD: WaW, L4D and even Dead Space more than I normally would. Why? Because they are actually pretty decent games.

Just because Nvidia chose to put their name all over their performance numbers doesn't diminish the fact that the are all quite popular. Indeed, even if these weren't part of Nvidia's "list", I would still probably be including them in the reviews for the sole reason of their popularity and pure enjoyment.

On the flip side of things, assuming a reviewer will go out of his way to try to find some games which perform better on ATI hardware is expecting the impossible. Sure, Clear Sky and X4 seem to benefit ATI but other than that, Nvidia seems to have a choke hold on most newly released and upcoming games. This means that reviews will naturally slant towards Nvidia when games are first released. That doesn't make the p/reviews biased in any way, shape or form; it tells the actual story of Nvidia working directly with developers while ATI needs to go through one or two driver revisions before they get performance nailed down in some popular games. That is the reality of the situation and it would be dishonest for the reviewers to not tell the story as we see it.

Sure they give out some info of the games people are playing and what kind of performance should be expected in those games, it still is a list picked by Nvidia, and the rest of the games shall not be used for testing. This sure is an Nvidia PR thing to let people to do previews, and as such, should not be used as a final judgement of a product.

But yeah, inital results look good, rumoured prices look good and hopefully availibility will be good aswell. Though, niche card for niche market. As such, I am not really interested.

[AbelJemka]

He was being sarcastic. Technically you're still wrong.

Too late? Ati wont have anything till Q2 2009, its not late at all.

You dont know Nvidia was not suppose to release someting before Q1'09 2 months ago just rumors. Now they pull the trigger. There is alos a lots of rumours about ATI this days...

Nvidia is in good position right now, with the GTX 285 and new GTX 260 coming out, they should be in good shape.

They will miss Christmas sales. 260GTX 216 is already out and don't seem to kill 4870 sales so much. 285GTX will replace 280GTX sales. Nvidia is much more 4850, 4830 and 4670 and they still have nothing to counter them

[WhiskeyAlpha]

Meh, when your pushing 100fps, whats the real difference between 100 and 105. Nothing your eyes can see. The reviews show that ATI still does take the win with hi-res, hi-AA, hi-detail benchmarks. The Nvidia card seems much more at home with a little less AA.

Interesting card, but I wish Nvidia would have dumped the sandwich design. I wont be buying one. My ATI 4850s on my 22" LCD are plenty.

Not specifically referring to the cards in question but more in a general sense here: More important than the 100 - 105 margin you talk of is minimum and average framerates.

There has been many comparisions between cards over the years where somebody will argue that due to a card having higher average or maximum framerates, it is automatically the better option. It's simply not the case and minimum framerates are really the crucial factor.

If you could run crysis at say 100fps most of the time but hit dips of 10fps every now and then or alternatively have 30fps all the time, 30fps would be the better 'perceived' framerate, due to its stability.

What I'm getting at here is more powerful cards do have a purpose that goes beyond trying to obtain uber-pointless 100+ framerates but rather they allow a high level of detail (including AF + AA) at a good res, with consistently stable minimal framerates

[SKYMTL]

Sure they give out some info of the games people are playing and what kind of performance should be expected in those games, it still is a list picked by Nvidia, and the rest of the games shall not be used for testing. This sure is an Nvidia PR thing to let people to do previews, and as such, should not be used as a final judgement of a product.

Unfortunately, that was the reality of the situation. I can say the same thing about Anand's "insight" into ATI's development process or previews which were posted of last-generation hardware. It all goes through the PR loop which says "how do we make ourselves look good?" before becoming a reality.