Single PCB GeForce GTX 295 Coming Mid May
April 29, 2009 by Cabro · Leave a Comment
Nvidia is planning to launch their single PCB, dual GPU GeForce GTX 295 card somewhere in mid May although the official launch date hasn’t been firmed up yet. The card is based on a new P658 PCB which is 11″ long and takes up 2 slots with a new cooler. The core clock remains unchanged at 576MHz while the memory is clocked slightly higher at 1100MHz. The card requires 8-pin and a 6-pin power. Price remains the unchanged so there is nothing much to get excited about.
ASUS RADEON HD 4850/4870 and GeForce GTX 285/295 Review
April 20, 2009 by Cabro · Leave a Comment
More and more plain reference copies are released into the market, and it’s a sad situation for reviewers, as there is no point in presenting just another copy for the Nth time.
Fortunately, company’s R&D department still exists in its full strength, so we have an opportunity to see original ASUS products from time to time.
Still, there are some exceptions: e.g. NVIDIA GTX 2xx products have been represented only by reference designs so far. But those are special because of the complex PCB design with 512-bit and 448-bit buses. Engineers haven’t probably come up with their own cheaper design yet. And if it’s not cheaper, there is no point in it.
Let’s examine new cards from ASUS based on top NVIDIA GPUs as well as Mid-End GPUs from AMD.
Single-PCB GTX 295 arrives in May
April 14, 2009 by Cabro · Leave a Comment
The single PCB GTX 295 from Nvidia is confirmed for May time, and we’ve heard that end users should not really be excited about it.
The clocks will be the same, the price will be the same, and we still don’t know if the new card manages to have better TDP then previous version. Some partners might overclock it but this is something that can always be expected.
Such a card, with a single PCB, is naturally cheaper for Nvidia to produce as the single PCB and single side cooler are cheaper to produce, which will eventually help Nvidia make more money on it.
This card is likely to be the fastest thing around until late 2009, probably even Q4, when it should get replaced by 40nm, DirectX 11 cards.
Source: Fudzilla
Sphere: Related ContentGeForce GTX 295: New on Old – Review
March 25, 2009 by Cabro · Leave a Comment
This article is going to be slightly different. Instead of testing the most powerful and expensive graphics card currently available in a high-end system, we’ll be plugging it into a fairly old AMD dual core system. That’s right, no fancy Core i7 X58 system here… not even a Core 2 system. In this review we’ll be testing this card in our old AsRock DDR Athlon X2 system that has a single 16x PCIe 1.0a slot. I know what you’re thinking… why? Why would anyone consider spending such a vast amount of money on a graphics card and then plug it into such a wimpy system? Surely it would be far better to spend that money on a system upgrade first? Well, not everyone can or wants to transfer their current system to a new one. However, they may be capable or willing to plug in a new graphics card with the hope it will let them play recent cutting-edge games. So will shoehorning in a monster like a GeForce GTX 295 card achieve this goal, or will the remaining system hold back the performance to such a degree that a card like this is pointless? Let’s find out.
GTX 275 Offered Later, With Lower Clocks
March 25, 2009 by Cabro · Leave a Comment
Our information source points out that GTX 275 won’t hit retail market until April 13th, though the launch date remains as April 6th.
Several brands of Radeon HD 4890 have reached store in Taiwan, but according to the leaked benchmarks, its performance doesn’t bring much surprise. And it would be a while before the release of Catalyst 9.4 Driver which is designed to optimize HD 4890.
Besides the adjustment of availability, the frequencies of GTX 275 will be reduced to somewhere lower than we reported. Viewed from this aspect, Radeon HD 4890 is not only below the expectations of AMD fans, but also below than that of NVIDIA.
Source: expreview
Sphere: Related ContentNVIDIA’s Scheme of Single-PCB Reference GTX295 Outlined
March 25, 2009 by Cabro · Leave a Comment
While GeForce GTX275 and Radeon HD 4890 catch the most focus, we’re informed that NVIDIA is working on a new GTX295 reference design card featuring single PCB.
The current GTX295 features dual-PCB design codenamed P656 with one GPU on each. New GTX295 will adopt single PCB design known as P658, which means NVIDIA need to cram two G200 chips onto one PCB board. Therefore, the wiring and power supply parts as well as sandwich cooler need to be rearranged. In this way, the cost of cooler and thus whole VGA card can be significantly reduced. The clock and performance of GTX295 remain unchanged during this transition, and 6pin+8pin power connectors are employed. Added a back plate, the pricing of new GTX295 won’t be influenced.
NVIDIA is said to finalize the engineering sample of new GTX 295 within April, but it won’t be officially launched until May.
Source: expreview
Sphere: Related ContentUnleashing NVIDIA’s GTX 295 Graphics Card
March 23, 2009 by Cabro · Leave a Comment
CPU limitation is something that we always talk about when it comes to high-end graphics cards. When we say this, we mean that the CPU is holding back the frames that the graphics card is capable of putting out. The less intensive the game, or the lower resolution you play at; this increases the chances of hitting that bottle neck.
There are ultimately three ways to remove the bottleneck on a high-end graphics card. First, increase the settings in the game; things like turning on AA and AF help. The problem is that this might put you at an unplayable FPS level.
The second option is to buy a new monitor that offers a higher resolution, something like 1920 x 1200 or even 2560 x 1600. This can be an expensive task and again the increase in resolution might take your FPS to a level that isn’t playable.
The third and best option which doesn’t have a negative impact on performance is by overclocking. This not helps remove, or at least make the FPS limitation higher. Unlike the other two methods, this process will give you an increase in performance, which is ultimately what you want.
So what exactly have we done today? – We’ll, let’s have a look at the Test System Setup and a quick rundown on what we’re doing here.
EVGA Releases GeForce GTX 295 Red Edition
March 18, 2009 by Cabro · Leave a Comment
Performance
NVIDIA GTX 295
576 MHz GPU
480 Processing Cores
400 MHz RAMDAC
Memory
1792 MB, 896 bit DDR3
1998 MHz (effective)
223.8 GB/s Memory Bandwidth
Interface
PCI-E 2.0 16x
DVI-I, DVI-I, HDMI
SLI Capable
Resolution & Refresh
240Hz Max Refresh Rate
2048×1536 Max Analog
2560×1600 Max Digital
Key Features
Other Features
Digital Vibrance Control™ (DVC) Technology
More interesting GPU moves coming from NVIDIA
March 13, 2009 by Cabro · Leave a Comment
After the release and rebranding of the GeForce GTS 250 graphics card this month, it appears that NVIDIA might have some more “new” products coming down the pipeline. And by “new” I mean “not really new at all.”
First up are reports of a GeForce GTX 275 product that would essentially be based on the GPU contained on the GeForce GTX 295 graphics card. The difference would be that the GTX 275 would only be a single GPU and would sell for somewhere between the $175 price on the GTX 260+ and the $330 price on the GTX 285. If the assertion that the GTX 275 would use the same 55nm GPU as the GTX 295 is true, then the card specs would be like this:
- 240 stream processors
- 576 MHz core clock
- 1242 MHz shader clock
- 1000 / 2000 MHz GDDR3 memory clock
- 896MB total frame buffer
- 448-bit memory interface per core
- 56 total ROPs (28 per core)
- 160 texture units (80 per core)
EVGA GTX 295 1792MB GDDR3 Video Card Review
January 9, 2009 by Cabro · Leave a Comment
I know that there are many of you are thinking right now: “what, another new graphics card from Nvidia?” yup, you got it guys, Nvidia is on a mission to recapture the performance crown from the HD 4870 X2 and they aren’t being subtle about it. Their latest stab at the ultra high end is called the GTX 295 and it is packing enough heat to put ATI’s frontrunner in its place. Yes, this may be a bit “been there, done that” for those of you who read our preview of the GTX 295 a few weeks ago but make no mistake about it; this is a review with a ton of games, higher IQ settings and yes, even those power consumption numbers we were asked to show after the preview. This is where the rubber meets the road folks since we are expecting a finished product here without the quirkiness found in the beta drivers used for the preview. In this vein we should mention right away that the drivers we are using for this review should be available at launch from the Nvidia website.
So, what is this card all about? Basically, it consists of a pair of 55nm GTX 260 cards joined by and SLI connector which have been massaged to provide a little extra performance through additional texture filter units and stream processors. These two cores are each paired up with 896MB of GDDR3 memory for a total of 1792MB which puts it slightly below the 2GB of lightning-fast GDDR5 found on the HD 4870 X2 but that shouldn’t be too much of an issue performance-wise. However, in the preview we saw the telltale signs of framebuffer limitation in some rare cases so it will be interesting to see if this becomes more pronounced as we bump up the AA and IQ settings in the later tests.
Pricing here in Canada seems to have been set and while the GTX 295 was supposed to retail for around the same price as the HD 4870 X2 and it has indeed hit that point squarely on the head. One thing is for sure: with Nvidia promising their new wunderkind will outperform ATI’s dual GPU monster, equal pricing is definitely a breath of fresh air. Trust me, I have seen companies quote a price for a preview only to see that price balloon as distributors and retailers inflate their cut of the cake. So, now that we have seen actual pricing here in Canada, Nvidia’s original number have borne true.
In this particular review we will be looking at the EVGA GTX 295 which will be available at launch in good quantities throughout the country. Usually we get an overclocked version of their cards at launch but this time it is a stock clocker as we have been told that there won’t be any overclocked cards from any manufacturer at launch. This probably has something to do with the temperatures seen on the cores but more on that a bit later in the review. One way or another, as usual you should feel confident in looking at this EVGA card since they have some of the best customer service around, have a Lifetime Warranty on all of their cards and also offer their famous Step Up program. We should also mention that from personal experience we have usually found EVGA graphics cards to be among the least expensive at most retailers which is always something to remember in these tough times.
Speaking of tough times, it may seem odd that Nvidia is releasing a near-$600 ($500 for our friends south of the border) at a time when phrases like “credit crunch” and “slowing economy” are all the rage. I am sure Nvidia has their reasons but let’s be honest, laying claim to the top spot in the GPU power race has massive PR advantages even if the product doesn’t sell like hotcakes.
Anyways, enough rambling. On to the review!!!
