NVIDIA GTX295 Preview/Review

[AbelJemka]

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

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

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

[jasonelmore]

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

[AbelJemka]

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

Which 10 other sites?
HardOCP review




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

[Calmatory]

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.

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.

[jasonelmore]

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

These sites right here!

[AbelJemka]

FiringSquad review with 8AA







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

These sites right here!

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

...

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

[trinibwoy]

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.

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.

[Scubar]

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.

[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

[v_rr]

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.

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

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:

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

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

[Calmatory]

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

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...

[jasonelmore]

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

[AbelJemka]

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

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

[trinibwoy]

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

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.

[SKYMTL]

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

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...

[jasonelmore]

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

[SKYMTL]

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

.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.

[Jacky]

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

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.

[Warboy]

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

[Ch3ck5um]

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

[Blacky]

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...

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 !

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

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

[PRJ]

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

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

Has anybody seen quad SLi results...?

[Blacky]

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

Has anybody seen quad SLi results...?

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

[Leeghoofd]

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...

[Eastcoasthandle]

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...

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