A New Top Graphics Card from Nvidia: GTX295

A New Top Graphics Card from Nvidia: GTX295

Postby Nightwatch on 24 Dec 2008 16:05

It has been announced that Nvidia is set to release a new Graphics Card as its flagship product in the first weeks of 2009. The new card, named as GTX295 is reported to be utilizing much expected 55nm die and will have 1.792 Gb VRAM and offer 480 shader processors as opposed to that of 216 for GTX260 and 240 for GTX280.

Quoting from Tom's Hardware:

"Initial speculation was that the GeForce GTX 295 would consist of two GT200s in a configuration that’d emulate a pair of GTX 260s. In all actuality, the card boasts a pair of full-strength GT200s with 240 processing cores each and a more GTX 260-like back-end/memory configuration.

The original GT200 was a 1.4 billion transistor behemoth manufactured using TSMC’s 65 nm node. The version of the chip GeForce GTX 295 employs is die-shrunk to 55 nm. As part of the transition, Nvidia’s Jason Paul claims the company has also made silicon timing changes to improve performance per watt, which should manifest themselves in our discussion of power consumption.

Like the GeForce GTX 280, each GPU on the GTX 295 has, as mentioned, 240 SPs and 80 texture address/filtering units. But, like the GTX 260, the same 295’s GPUs include seven ROP/framebuffer partitions to total 28 ROPs and 448 bits of aggregate memory bandwidth to 896 MB of GDDR3. Vital clocks are also in-line with the GeForce GTX 260. The core clock, including texture/ROPs, runs at 576 MHz. The stream processors run at 1,242 MHz. And the memory runs at 999 MHz (1,998 MHz effective). As you can see, each chip is architecturally right between Nvidia’s fastest and second-fastest ASICs."

Image

The full and very detailed preview in Tom's Hardware:
http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/geforce-gtx-295,review-31470.html
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Re: A New Top Graphics Card from Nvidia: GTX295

Postby ket on 01 Jan 2009 16:26

The GTX295 is not worth it. I could go into details but the post would be more of an essay writeup :p: The long and short of it all is if you want a powerful, overclockable GPU from nVidia, buy a GTX260 core 216 55nm (not the 65nm versions) or if you have more of a budget to splurge, a GTX285.
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Re: A New Top Graphics Card from Nvidia: GTX295

Postby audioave10 on 11 Jan 2009 21:30

I'm still seeing a lack of support for these double-cards where you
have 2 cores on one PCB. I'm also wondering why the core clock is so low...probably heat. Totally agree with KET on the smart choice.
OC the 260 (216) and it would be as good (or very close).
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Re: A New Top Graphics Card from Nvidia: GTX295

Postby Nightwatch on 11 Jan 2009 22:43

Yup. I agree, too; that'll be the wise decision. :mozilla_smile:
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Re: A New Top Graphics Card from Nvidia: GTX295

Postby Grump642 on 12 Jan 2009 01:13

Yeah, both an ATI 4870 1gig and nVidia 260/280 can play about anything on maxed out setting. Beyond that, unless you are playing on a 30" monitor, it's a waste of money.
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Re: A New Top Graphics Card from Nvidia: GTX295

Postby EggChen on 12 Jan 2009 02:03

Grump642 wrote:nVidia 260/280 can play about anything on maxed out setting.


Except Clear Sky....

I have a GTX280, 8Gb Ram, Q9550 @ 2.83 Ghz, and I got just over 30FPS... and then my computer blew up, and that was only at 1024x768 res!!

My PC was absolutely flawless on Crysis, and Clear Sky killed it :(
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Re: A New Top Graphics Card from Nvidia: GTX295

Postby audioave10 on 12 Jan 2009 03:21

Clear Sky ran nicely for me with dual-core @2.8ghz, 4gb RAM, SLI
8800GTS-512's and XP SP3. Resolution was 1280x960 and the full
game ran great. It could have been any number of things that did
the damage (although I'd be pissed too).
and...I have the same PSU...EggChen...you don't really think the
game killed your PC do you? :-?
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Re: A New Top Graphics Card from Nvidia: GTX295

Postby ket on 12 Jan 2009 05:34

Perhaps the game does the player a favour? To save wasting all that time to see how monstrously rubbish CS is, it just blows your PC up :p
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Re: A New Top Graphics Card from Nvidia: GTX295

Postby EggChen on 12 Jan 2009 20:52

audioave10 wrote:Clear Sky ran nicely for me with dual-core @2.8ghz, 4gb RAM, SLI
8800GTS-512's and XP SP3. Resolution was 1280x960 and the full
game ran great. It could have been any number of things that did
the damage (although I'd be pissed too).
and...I have the same PSU...EggChen...you don't really think the
game killed your PC do you? :-?


Well it handles max DX9 easily, the 30fps was on max DX10, with everything enabled, soft water, light, shadows, etc.... Not really CS's fault, I just reckon the PSU had an inherant fault and CS found it through the most power usage the PSU had tried to handle....
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Re: A New Top Graphics Card from Nvidia: GTX295

Postby audioave10 on 13 Jan 2009 15:04

Sounds reasonable when you put it that way.
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Re: A New Top Graphics Card from Nvidia: GTX295

Postby ket on 13 Jan 2009 15:19

CS is just craptacular. What is it with replacing a bunch of textures with new looking ones? Looks like it was just done to try and make CS look "nicer". I've barely even played CS since getting it and couldn't care less. SoC FTW!
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Re: A New Top Graphics Card from Nvidia: GTX295

Postby audioave10 on 17 Jan 2009 08:54

There is now a new GTX 285...a 55nm update to the GTX 280. I'd
be more interested in that one (if I had the cash). Or, if I wanted
to activate my Platinum Visa card...LOL. Must NOT tempt myself.
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Re: A New Top Graphics Card from Nvidia: GTX295

Postby ket on 21 Jan 2009 22:52

GTX260 216 55nm is still the way to go. Sure you can OC a 285 and regain that 10-15% margin, but is it really worth twice the price or more of the 260? Nah!
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Re: A New Top Graphics Card from Nvidia: GTX295

Postby audioave10 on 23 Jan 2009 08:10

NewEgg - 1-22-09 in the US

GTX 260 - $270 / free shipping

GTX 285 - $385 / free shipping
both EVGA ... $115 decision to make there.
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Re: A New Top Graphics Card from Nvidia: GTX295

Postby Balious on 23 Jan 2009 13:20

Im still wondering what graphics card to get as I still got my crappy Nivida geforce 8400 gs. maybe geforce 8800 GT/GS (cant remenber what it was now) do.

Also whats with all the hate for CS? I do find it nice. But just once I will want to play a game with very very good graphics on max just to see how good it looks without no slowness and I can just enjoy it.
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Re: A New Top Graphics Card from Nvidia: GTX295

Postby Nightwatch on 23 Jan 2009 14:08

Personally, I'm planning to get a 260GTX 55nm 216 cores which EVGA sells some very nicely OC'ed ones, I think the resulting differences between 285, 295 and and OC'd 260 won't be truely noticeable with human eye, rest is more or less academic only, just technical numbers between them.

It's also need to said that, as we all know, a graphics card cannot achieve everything it boeast with (or it's advertised with) as many things do come into the equation, such as the quality of one's monitor, CPU, RAM, -and very importantly- a powerful enough PSU that would provide the juice for it without coughing.

So the price difference between 260GTX and 285 or 295 versions can be spent much better to increase the overall performance and visuals, in my opinion. (I don't think Nvidia would like to hear that :mozilla_smile: )

@Balious
9800GTX+ version sells almost the same as 8800 GT/GS; a little better than those and can have a better re-sale value in the future.:mozilla_wink:
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Re: A New Top Graphics Card from Nvidia: GTX295

Postby Balious on 23 Jan 2009 14:54

@Nightwatch
Thanks for that. Know where I can get one cheap as for looking for graphic cards and memory/ram I am not really good at.
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Re: A New Top Graphics Card from Nvidia: GTX295

Postby Nightwatch on 23 Jan 2009 16:26

Your welcome :mozilla_smile:
You can try Scan.co.uk
http://www.scan.co.uk/Index.aspx?NT=1-0-17-565-0

and Ebuyer
http://www.ebuyer.com/search?page=2&sto ... w&limit=50

both have the 9800GTX+ with better prices than most places.

For RAMs, you can run the CPUZ utility to check the specs of your RAM, even if you don't do that, you can go to scan.co.uk and use their online RAM matching utility. Just enter the name of your motherboard, it'll tell you compatible RAMs available to buy. Prices are good as well.
After you've learned the comatible specs, then you can check other stores as well, like eBuyer.
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Re: A New Top Graphics Card from Nvidia: GTX295

Postby audioave10 on 23 Jan 2009 16:41

9800GTX...a great card for the money but you need a minimum 450
-500 watt PSU with 2 six-pin connectors to power it. FatRap has one.
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