The Comeback Kid - NVIDIA GeForce GTX 295 Full Review

The Comeback Kid - NVIDIA GeForce GTX 295 Full Review

less than a month ago, the new twin-GPU GeForce GTX 295 is NVIDIA's latest flagship card. Its conception follows closely that of NVIDIA's earlier dual-GPU offering, the GeForce 9800 GX2, and that can be seen from the GeForce GTX 295 two PCB design. Rather than follow ATI's lead and squeeze two GPUs on a single PCB, what NVIDIA is doing here, instead, is to squeeze two PCBs, one GPU each, into a single card. It would therefore not be wrong to call the new GeForce GTX 295 a sandwich.

As mentioned in our preview, the GeForce GTX 295 employs two GPUs that boast specifications that are in between the current single GPU flagship, the Geforce GTX 280, and the less powerful GeForce GTX 260 Core 216 (GTX 260+). To be more precise, it has 240 processing cores, the same number as the GeForce GTX 280; whereas the memory bus width and clock speeds follow that of the GTX 260+, which means it has a 448-bit wide memory bus, and clock speeds of 576MHz for the core, 1998MHz DDR for the memory and 1242MHz for the shaders.

NVIDIA was very fussy about what we could and could not test with their new flagship, and so the preview was limited to only a number of tests. However, now that the GeForce GTX 295 has been officially announced, we have free rein to do what we want. Plus now we've newer drivers to showcase the latest results.

To refresh your memory, and for the benefit of those who haven't read our preview, the GPU-Z readings tell you exactly what's underneath the GeForce GTX 295. The table, on the other hand, shows you how the GeForce GTX 295 stands up to the competition.

The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 295

For those who missed out on our preview, this is what the new GeForce GTX 295 looks like. Unlike cards of old, the GeForce GTX 295 is mostly perforated so as to help keep it cool. It also features something NVIDIA calls "soft touch paint", which gives it a rubbery feel and matte look. Those who know a thing or two about cars will no doubt know that matte stickers are all the rage these days, especially on exotics. Could this is be where NVIDIA got their inspiration for soft touch paint from?

Test Setup

Again, all tests will be done on our Vista system, which comes with the following specifications:

• Windows Vista SP1 Test System
• Intel Core 2 Extreme QX6850 (3.00GHz)
• Gigabyte X38T-DQ6 motherboard
• 2 x 1GB DDR3-1333 Aeneon memory in dual channel mode
• Seagate 7200.10 200GB SATA hard drive
• Windows Vista Ultimate with SP1

Like our preview, the GeForce GTX 295 will be pitted against ATI's very own dual-GPU flagship, the Radeon HD 4870 X2. To round up and to see how much it improves upon NVIDIA's previous flagship, we have also added the GeForce GTX 280, GTX 260+ and Radeon HD 4870.

As for drivers, the GeForce GTX 295 was tested using the latest ForceWare 181.20 drivers, which is newer than those we used on the preview article, while the rest of the NVIDIA cards were tested using the recently released ForceWare 180.48 drivers. Previously, the cards from ATI were tested using drivers from Catalyst 8.10, so this time round, we've updated them to Catalyst 8.12. This will paint a clearer picture of the cards' performance.

The complete list of cards tested as well as their driver versions are as follows:

• NVIDIA GeForce GTX 295 1792MB GDDR3 (ForceWare 181.20)
• ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2 2GB GDDR5 (Catalyst 8.12)
• NVIDIA GeForce GTX 280 1GB GDDR3 (ForceWare 180.48)
• ATI Radeon HD 4870 512MB GDDR5 (Catalyst 8.12)
• NVIDIA GeForce GTX 260 Core 216 896MB GDDR3 (ForceWare 180.48)

In our preview article, because of strict restrictions by NVIDIA, we were only allowed to test on a handful of games. We'll now be expanding on our initial suite of benchmarks with 3DMark06, Crysis Warhead and Unreal Tournament 3. And of course now with newer drivers used across all the cards compared, the results on the following page can't get any more current than this.

• Futuremark 3DMark06
• Futuremark 3DMark Vantage
• Crysis Warhead
• Far Cry 2
• Left 4 Dead
• Unreal Tournament 3

Windows Vista Results - 3DMark06

As we enter the new year, 3DMark06 is, admittedly, a little ancient by today standards. However, it remains to be a very popular benchmark and is still one of the yardsticks by which today's modern graphics cards are measured.

Judging from the results of our preview, we were confident that the new GeForce GTX 295 would easily defeat the ATI's Radeon HD 4870 X2. But to our surprise, that was not the case. In fact, the Radeon HD 4870 X2 handily beat the GeForce GTX 295 and the margin of defeat was considerably wide as well. It recorded 3DMarks that were on average about 10% greater. Seeing that the Radeon HD 4870 was able to go head-to-head with the GeForce GTX 280, our guess is that the new drivers from NVIDIA are not optimized for 3DMark06, resulting in these less than impressive scores.

Yet another possible issue we noticed was the difference in performance between the Radeon 4870 and the X2 version compared with the GeForce GTX 280 and the GTX 295 graphics cards; it seemed as if SLI wasn't working optimally on GTX 295 since the performance difference is much less than the ATI counterparts. Fortunately, this isn't the case for the other tests as you'll see on the following pages.

Windows Vista Results - 3DMark Vantage

Coming to Vista, the GeForce GTX 295 finally showed what it was capable of, as it posted what were easily the highest figures we've ever seen in our labs. It left all the other cards in a cloud of dust.

Windows Vista Results - Crysis Warhead & Far Cry 2

Now we seek to answer the question that everyone is dying to know - "Can it run Crysis on full settings?" Well... almost. At our most demanding setting, the GeForce GTX 295 returned 27.85fps, which is just slightly off the minimum 30fps required for smooth playability.

Elsewhere however, the GeForce GTX 295 recorded very impressive frame-rates, especially at the lower resolutions. On average, the GeForce GTX 295 managed to keep ahead of the Radeon 4870 X2 by 15% and a whopping 50 to 60% faster than the GeForce GTX 280.

The GeForce GTX 295 is also equally well-equipped for handling Far Cry 2. Across all settings, the GeForce GTX 295 managed frame-rates that were higher than 50fps. This means that with the GeForce GTX 295, you can afford to crank up the settings and really enjoy the stunning visuals that the games have to offer.

While ATI's latest Catalyst 8.12 drivers did drastically improve the performance of the ATI cards, their flagship, the Radeon HD 4870 X2 was still no much for the GeForce GTX 295. The new drivers did help close the gap, but the gap was too wide in the first place. This is painfully apparent on the more demanding settings.

Windows Vista Results - Left 4 Dead & Unreal Tournament 3

Left 4 Dead makes use of Valve's aged Source engine. It was breakthrough stuff four years ago when it was conceived, but now, it is beginning to show signs of its age. Considering the age of the Source engine, it was not surprising then that all the cards made short work of the tests. Despite cranking the video settings up, all cards managed exceptionally playable frame-rates.

The GeForce GTX 295 was, however, the fastest card here. Fortunately for ATI, the gap between its Radeon HD 4870 X2 and NVIDIA's new flagship is not as wide as what we've seen on previous benchmarks. In fact, the GeForce GTX 295's lead over the Radeon HD 4870 X2 was slowly reduced as we upped the settings. At the highest setting, both recorded nearly identical frame-rates.

Temperature

If you thought the GeForce GTX 295's performance in terms of sheer frame-rates were impressive, be prepared to be blown away.

In our preview, we weren't allowed to mention anything about temperature and power measurements, but now we could. Surprisingly, given the nature of the GeForce GTX 295, we expected the cooler to be fairly noisy. However, we experienced the opposite. The GeForce GTX 295 is not absolutely quiet, but it is no noisier than your standard GeForce GTX 280 or GTX 260+.

More impressive however, is its temperature readings, at load, the GeForce GTX 295 recorded a maximum of only 76 degrees Celsius. This is significantly lower than the Radeon HD 4870 X2. In fact, of all the cards tested, only the GeForce GTX 260+ managed lower temperatures than the GeForce GTX 295. And remember, the GeForce GTX 295 has two cores.

Power Consumption

With an increasing focus on green products, NVIDIA has continually improved upon the power consumption of the cards and we think the numbers posted here by their latest flagship is the result of the culmination of their efforts. The GeForce GTX 295 had a remarkable low power draw at idle. At load, it recorded a 367W, lower than the 397W the Radeon HD 4870 X2 managed. For all intents and purposes, the GeForce GTX 295 is still a power-sapping card, but if you put these figures (and performance) into perspective, it is really quite outstanding. This means the new NVIDIA flagship gives a greater performance to watt ratio than the Radeon HD 4870 X2.

Overclocking

In our past reviews, we noted that the GeForce GTX 280 and GTX 260 were capable of some incredible overclocking, and the GeForce GTX 295 didn't disappoint. Although it couldn't overclock to the same levels as its less powerful siblings, 640MHz at the core and 2200MHz at the memory is nonetheless a significant increase, especially when you consider we have two GPUs here. The results prove our point.

A Successful Counter-attack

To say that NVIDIA hasn't been having the best of times would be something of a gross understatement. After losing some market share to ATI and their popular Radeon HD 4800 series of cards, they were subsequently dealt a harsh blow when a substantial number of their GeForce 8400M and 8600M mobile-GPUs were found to be suffering from heat-related issues.

However, fight back they did and it could be said that they have mounted a somewhat successful comeback. Their refresh of the GeForce GTX 260 with 216 stream processors looks good, especially with the new driver upgrades; and recently, Apple has decided to employ NVIDIA's new GeForce 9400 mGPUs on their MacBooks and MacBook Pros.

The guys in green are certainly gaining steam, and the GeForce GTX 295 is continuing their fine form. Forgive us if we seem to be waxing lyrical about this new card, but this card is in all aspects better than the card it set out to beat. It runs faster, cooler and more efficiently. More crucially, it is also cheaper. Set to retail at launch for US$499, this makes it slightly cheaper than Radeon HD 4870 X2 cards, which are going for around US$520 on Newegg. Should you be expecting price cuts from ATI then? Highly likely, we think. Even considering the pricing of the existing GeForce GTX 280 cards, the GTX 295 looks appealing to the point we think you can expect some gradual price revisions to the 280 models.

In sum, it would not be superfluous to say that NVIDIA has finally countered ATI's advances, and that the GeForce GTX 295 is at this moment the best graphics card money can buy. However, it remains to be seen how NVIDIA can transfer its successes in the enthusiast segment to its mainstream one. As of now, their mainstream cards are still very much from the last era - the GeForce 9800 GT is actually an 8800 GT in disguise, while the GeForce 9600 GSO is really an 8800 GS in a fancy frock. A chain is only as strong as its weakest link, so it's imperative that NVIDIA take what makes their high-end cards good and transfer it to their mainstream offerings.

In the meantime, NVIDIA can rest assure that their new flagship will remain the fastest single graphics card for some time to come. In addition, NVIDIA has also announced the GeForce GTX 285, essentially a 55nm refresh of the GeForce GTX 280, and we can't wait to see how that turns out (tune in next week for that answer). Right now however, all eyes are on ATI if they are conjuring any counters, but from what we know to date, it's unlikely until the next refresh.

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