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NVIDIA GeForce GTX 295 Review
[Abstract]
The Comeback Kid - NVIDIA GeForce GTX 295 Full ReviewFirst previewed less than a month ago, the new twin-GPU GeForce GTX 295 is NVIDIA's latest flagship card. Its conception follows closely tha...
[Content] PCDigitalMobileGame
The Comeback Kid - NVIDIA GeForce GTX 295 Full Review
First previewed less than a month ago, the new twin-GPU GeForce GTX 295 is NVIDIA's latest flagship card. Its conception follows closely that of NVIDIA's earlier dual-GPU offering, the GeForce 9800 GX2, and that can be seen from the GeForce GTX 295 two PCB design. Rather than follow ATI's lead and squeeze two GPUs on a single PCB, what NVIDIA is doing here, instead, is to squeeze two PCBs, one GPU each, into a single card. It would therefore not be wrong to call the new GeForce GTX 295 a sandwich.
As this diagram clearly show, the new GeForce GTX 295 is quite literally a sandwich of a graphics card - two card plastered together kept cool by a heatsink/fan combo in the middle. |
As mentioned in our preview, the GeForce GTX 295 employs two GPUs that boast specifications that are in between the current single GPU flagship, the Geforce GTX 280, and the less powerful GeForce GTX 260 Core 216 (GTX 260+). To be more precise, it has 240 processing cores, the same number as the GeForce GTX 280; whereas the memory bus width and clock speeds follow that of the GTX 260+, which means it has a 448-bit wide memory bus, and clock speeds of 576MHz for the core, 1998MHz DDR for the memory and 1242MHz for the shaders.
NVIDIA was very fussy about what we could and could not test with their new flagship, and so the preview was limited to only a number of tests. However, now that the GeForce GTX 295 has been officially announced, we have free rein to do what we want. Plus now we've newer drivers to showcase the latest results.
To refresh your memory, and for the benefit of those who haven't read our preview, the GPU-Z readings tell you exactly what's underneath the GeForce GTX 295. The table, on the other hand, shows you how the GeForce GTX 295 stands up to the competition.
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NVIDIA GeForce GTX 295 and Competitive Comparison SKUs
Comparing the GTX 295 | Model | NVIDIAGeForce GTX 295 1792MB GDDR3 | RadeonHD 4870 X2 2GB GDDR5 | NVIDIAGeForce GTX 280 1GB GDDR3 | NVIDIAGeForceGTX 260 Core 216 896MB GDDR3 | ATIRadeon HD 4870 512MB GDDR5 | | CoreCode | GT200x 2 | R700(RV770 x 2) | GT200 | GT200 | RV770 | | TransistorCount | 2800million | 1912million | 1400million | 1400million | 956million | | ManufacturingProcess | 55nm | 55nm | 65nm | 65nm/55nm | 55nm | | CoreClock | 576MHz | 750MHz | 602MHz | 576MHz | 750MHz | | StreamProcessors | 480Stream Processors | 320 Processors (1600 Stream processing units) | 240Stream Processors | 216Stream Processors | 160Processors (800 Stream processing units) | | StreamProcessor Clock | 1242MHz | 750MHz | 1296Mhz | 1242MHz | 750MHz | | TextureMapping Units (TMU) or Texture Filtering (TF)units | 160 | 80 | 80 | 72 | 40 | | RasterOperator units (ROP) | 56 | 32 | 32 | 28 | 16 | | MemoryClock | 1998MHzGDDR3 | 3600MHzGDDR5 | 2214MHzGDDR3 | 1998MHzGDDR3 | 3600MHzGDDR5 | | DDRMemory Bus Width | 448-bit | 256-bit | 512-bit | 448-bit | 256-bit | | MemoryBandwidth | 223.8GB/s | 230GB/s | 141.7GB/s | 111.9GB/s | 115.2GB/s | | PCIExpress Interface | PCIever 2.0 x16 | PCIever 2.0 x16 | PCIever 2.0 x16 | PCIever 2.0 x16 | PCIever 2.0 x16 | | MolexPower Connectors | 6-pin,8-pin | 6-pin,8-pin | 6-pin,8-pin | 2 x6-pin | 2 x6-pin | | MultiGPU Technology | Yes(SLI) | Yes(CrossFireX) | Yes(SLI) | Yes(SLI) | Yes(CrossFireX) | | DVIOutput Support | 2 xDual-Link, 1 x HDMI | 2 xDual-Link | 2 xDual-Link | 2 xDual-Link | 2 xDual-Link | | HDCPOutput Support | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | | StreetPrice | US$499 | ~US$529 | ~US$429 | ~US$259 | ~US$209 |
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