NVIDIA GeForce GTX 295 Video Card Review & benchmark test

Nvidia will release its next high-end graphics card at CES in Las Vegas on January 8th and the company has given us the opportunity to give bit-tech’s readers a sneak peek at how the GeForce GTX 295 will perform. However, because the card is not available on the market yet, and won’t be until January 8th at the earliest, the company has asked us to adhere to a number of restrictions..

The GeForce GTX 295 is a return to dual GPUs on a single card for Nvidia, which some may or may not appreciate. Nvidia still has the fastest single GPU card in the world with the GeForce GTX 280 but because there is such a gulf between Nvidia’s current flagship product and the ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2, it was time for the company to respond with something that’s able to compete for the graphics crown.

Specifications

480 Stream processors

576 MHz core clock

1242 MHz shader clock

1000 / 2000 MHz GDDR3 memory clock

1792MB total frame buffer (896MB per core)

4480-bit memory interface per core

56 total ROPs (28 per core)

160 texture units (80 per core)

Spec VS GTX 2xx

Model	Year	Code name	Fab (nm)	Transistors (Million)	Die Size (mm 2)	Bus interface	Memory min (MiB)	Config core 1	Reference clock rate			Fillrate		Reference Memory Configuration			Graphics library support (version		GFLOPs (MADD+MUL)	TDP (Watts)
									Core (MHz)	Shader (MHz)	Memory (MT/s)	Pixel (GP/s)	Texture (GT/s)	Bandwidth (GiB/s)	DRAM type	Bus width (bit)	DirectX	OpenGL
GeForce GTX 260	June 26, 2008	D10U-20	65	1400	576	PCIe x16 2.0	896	192:64:28	576	1242	1998	16.128	36.864	111.9	GDDR3	448 32x14	10	2.1	715	182
GeForce GTX 260 Core 216	September 16, 2008	?	65	1400	576	PCIe x16 2.0	896	216:72:28	576	1242	1998	16.128	41.472	111.9	GDDR3	448 32x14	10	2.1	805	182
GeForce GTX 280	June 17, 2008	D10U-30	65	1400	576	PCIe x16 2.0	1024	240:80:32	602	1296	2214	19.264	48.16	141.7	GDDR3	512 32x16	10	2.1	933	236
GeForce GTX 285	January 2009		55	1400?		PCIe x16 2.0	1024	240:80:32	648?	1476?	2484?			159.0	GDDR3	512	10	2.1		183
GeForce GTX 295	January 2009		55	1400?		PCIe x16 2.0	2x 896	2x 240:80:28	576	1242	1998	32.256	92.160	223.776	GDDR3	2x 448	10	2.1	1788.48	289

Test :

Crysis Warhead :

FarCry 2

The GeForce GTX 295 will feature the new die-shrunk 55nm version of the GeForce GT200 GPU, and will have the following specifications: 480 stream processors (240x2), a 896 bit memory interface (448x2), and 1792MB of GDDR3. Judging from these specs, there is no reason why this card won't be the single fastest card you can pick up, at least until ATI answers back. Fudzilla has tested the Geforce GTX 295 and it beats the 4870 X2 in almost every game. Nvidia claims that the 4870 X2 only won in certain games because Nvidia has not launched their new drivers for the card. With the new drivers, the GeForce GTX 295 is expected to beat the ATI 4870 X2 in every game.

The GeForce GTX 295 will be officially launched at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) on 8 January 2009, and Nvidia estimates that it will cost around $499 US (£322.41), although no official UK pricing has been announced yet.

	GeForce GTX 295	GeForce GTX 280	GeForce GTX 260	GeForce 9800 GX2	Radeon HD 4870 X2
Manufacturing Process	55nm TSMC	65nm TSMC	65nm TSMC	65nm TSMC	55nm TSMC
SPs	480	240	216	256	1,600
Core Clock	576 MHz	602 MHz	576 MHz	600 MHz	750 MHz
Shader Clock	1,242 MHz	1,296 MHz	1,242 MHz	1,500 MHz	750 MHz
Memory Clock	1,998 MHz Eff.	2,214 MHz Eff.	1,998 MHz Eff.	2,000 MHz Eff.	3,600 MHz Eff.
Frame Buffer	1,792 MB Tot.	1 GB	896 MB	1 GB Tot.	2 GB Tot.
Memory Bus Width	448-bit x 2	512-bit	448-bit	256-bit x 2	256-bit x 2
ROPs	56 Tot.	32	28	32 Tot.	32 Tot.
Price	$499 MSP	~$380	~$230	N/A	~$500

Tags: Ati, Ati Radeon, Geforce, Nvidia, NVIDIA GeForce, Radeon