NVIDIA card are now ripe for the pickings, with the new GTX range series just hitting the markets we were able to see the smaller die sized GTX 285 which I am going to review in just a moment, but for the greatest amazement for most diehard green enthusiast fans is the new flagship card the GTX 295. Given its name, the 295 is a top of the line for the GTX series and the last number, 5 is going to be the new 55nm fabrication process making it smaller and increase the density of the transistor count of the PCB. But unfortunately the GTX 295 is a double PCB graphics solution, think of it as a 9800GX2 but now having a pair of GTX 260’s with a permanent SLI bridge connecting the two cards. As we mention in a few review ago, that the ATi’s 4870X2 dominated the whole single graphics solution form NVIDIA, and they have nothing to do about, so we were wrong now and here we like to see if the GTX295 is up against for a five time winner 4870X2.
First of all the GTX 295 just came in the back of the stage when first released, it was kind of anonymous to have a beta driver and a string of problems with running with few of the game with other reviewers, plus the headache of not running SLI properly. But now BFG having the first real and unconstricted driver type GTX295, BFG’s GTX295 has the reference stock cooler with a single fans and a mix of copper and aluminium fins and spreaders; keeping the heat of two PCB’s under control, going 68 degrees above in load and fan noise is not much annoying than 4870X2, but keep it in the safe one for eardrums without protection. Just the flaw with the reference cooler is that third party companies have a limit on how many logos it can handle, even this one has a one few short of stickers going around but the top near the power connectors has a present BFG logo to give that you are not really having a card that is made by someone.
Game performance is not out of the ordinary with the GTX295, with some mixed results, going most top in most of the games like Crysis and also Farcry 2 in high res and quality even beating an X2 with DX10 certified games. Giving that it is still a GDDR3 memory interface but doubling the 448-bit in each PCB, giving it a much bigger bandwidth than the 4870X2 helps it play longer and faster in high res games.
But there is still SLI problems though; some games cannot even be playable in dual quad GTX295, some have a few second lifespan and then completely giving up had hanging with endless blue screens. But if you happen to find that a single graphics is enough to play most DX10 and Crysis in high quality, having being sick of the 4870X2’s hot publicity (in more ways than one) have relieved you have an alternative to a GTX 280 SLI interface with a single NVIDIA flagship card, bid comes up below the price of a 4870X2 gives it real competition for buyers, but in the long term, if ATi prizes go down NVIDIA cannot do anything over the prize war.
