nVidia GeForce GTX 295

nVidia GeForce GTX 295 - Test Setup

All our testing uses a variety of manual run throughs and automated timedemos, but regardless of which test method is used, we monitor all tests to ensure performance is consistent. Where there are spurious results or dips in performance we will note this. We also do multiple run throughs then take the average of these and report that figure to you. The test setup is as follows:

Common System Components

* Intel Core 2 Quad QX9770
* Asus P5E3
* 2GB Corsair TWIN3X2048-1333C9 DDR3
* 150GB Western Digital Raptor
* Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium 32-bit

Cards Tested
* nVidia GeForce GTX 295
* nVidia GeForce GTX 280
* nVidia GeForce GTX 260
* ATI HD 4870 X2
* ATI HD 4870

Drivers
* nVIdia GTX 295: Forceware 181.20
* Other nVidia GTX 2x0 series: Forceware 174.74
* nVidia 9x00 series: Forceware 175.19
* ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2: Catalyst 8.10

Games Tested
* Crysis
* Enemy Territory: Quake Wars
* Call of Duty 4
* Counter-Strike: Source

Notes:

* Our copy of Race Driver: GRID corrupted during testing and we weren't able to obtain another copy in time so this game has been omitted from our testing.

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23 comments

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azza21

2:10 PM on 9 January, 2009

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Superb performance from the new nVidia card, its taken them a while but finally they have a cards beating ATI's best with ease. The price however is a complete JOKE, £450...how on earth do they justify that price it's ridiculous. 5/6 months ago i managed to buy a 4870x2 for £330 a week after release, in the that time the economy has only been in freefall and at the moment not looking as if it is going to improve for a while atleast. So nVidia bringing a card to the market at that price just doesn't make sense, why not be competetive and release it around the same price of the 48070x2 when that came out, at the bare minimum. I hope they get a bashing for this.

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Ed

2:20 PM on 9 January, 2009

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In fairness azza21, the HD 4870 X2 has gone up in price since launch and now can't be had for less than £350 and most seem to be around the £380 mark. Certainly the GTX 295 is over priced but it's not quite as bad as it seems at first. Then again, maybe AMD will drop the price of the HD 4870 X2, in which case nVidia will have to respond.

gurnaik

2:53 PM on 9 January, 2009

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Wow, this card is more than twice as expensive as my current home machine!

ilovethemonkeyhead

3:03 PM on 9 January, 2009

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how much of a say do ati and nvidia have on prices? wouldn't it be down to each manufacturer to determine the price?

smc8788

3:21 PM on 9 January, 2009

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Also, this card can be had for £392 on ebuyer for anyone lucky enough to have the cash to splash.

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/155573

3:28 PM on 9 January, 2009

ATI and nVidia have the massive majority of say in how much a card will eventually cost. The chips are by far the most expensive part of each card and the margins for board partners are tiny. If ATI drops the price of each R700 chip by $10, the cumulative reduction in the cost of an HD 4870 X2 could be as much as $50. All a board partner can do is maybe use a cheaper cooler or remove not absolutely necessary circuitry (audio pass through, output options, power regulation, etc.) which will save them pennies and pass on a reduction of maybe $10 in the shops. The fact of the matter is that ATI and nVidia will be gouging as much money as possible out of consumers at this end of the market because they know some people will pay it. That's why it's so important for these companies to have the fastest product - it's money for nothing. It's not just graphics manufacturers. Every company does it when it can. Just look at the prices of Intel's top end Core i7 CPUs.

3:30 PM on 9 January, 2009

Wow, that's a big difference in price. Thanks smc8788.

3:43 PM on 9 January, 2009

Predictably, ATI has also cut the price of their rival card 4870X2 by $100 to $449 (in the US at least).

http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/video/display/20090108221331_AMD_Cuts_Price_of_ATI_Radeon_HD_4870_X2_Graphics_Card.html

Oh, and CoD 4 was released in 2007, not last year as stated in the review!

4:01 PM on 9 January, 2009

It's all kicking off now! I think a reassessment may be in order in a few weeks time.

I've corrected the CoD4 mistake, thanks smc8788.

ba5e

4:29 PM on 9 January, 2009

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The table on page one has erroneous information on the memory on the GTX 295, it should read:

Standard Memory Config: 1792 MB GDDR3 ( 896MB per GPU )

Memory Interface Width: 896-bit ( 448-bit per GPU )

Also, the GTX 260 does not have a 512bit Interface.....amongst other errors in this table. nvidias website has the correct specifications. Where did this data come from?

The reduced memory bandwith, as you state in the article may well be a factor leading to the poor FPS result at high resolutions in Crysis.

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