BFG & Zotac GeForce GTX 295 & 285 @ DH

GTX 295 & GTX 285 Review
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During CES 2009 Nvidia launched the latest cards in their GeForce range, the GTX 285 and 295. The 285 is essentially a refresh of the existing GTX 280 with a reduction in the core size and reduced power requirements. The GTX 295 is their latest dual GPU design, the first card since the 9800 GX2 to support Quad SLI. Rather than rush out a half assed review to meet Nvidia’s tight timescales for this launch, we opted to delay our article and ensure it was as informative as we could make it.

The result is that what you are about to read should cover any questions you have about the new Nvidia products. From gaming to Blu-Ray playback, Overclocking and Thermal Performance to the internal workings of the GTX 295, we have it covered. We also deal with video Transcoding and PhysX performance and for the hard core overclockers among you we pair the cards with a Core-i7 at 4.5GHz. All our games are fully updated as of the day of publication, including the new GTAIV 1.0.2 patch.
Are the cards worth your money? That is exactly what we aim to find out today.

 

Dont even know where to start, awesome. need to reread it there is so much in there.

 

Top drawer as always guys. worth the wait !

 

Finally saw the light, Now reading...

The quad 295gtx seems awesome but dissappointed with the results , it came out less than twice frames of single one.

GTA IV failed with quad sli " that's a shame to a game :hmm: " and in 4870x2 single and CF the frames still identical.

Oh and the test system is build on I7 & ddr3.

May be the delay was because of getting one

 

That's gotta be the first video card review that overwhelmed me trying to process it all :duh:

I was a little disappointed that GTAIV wasn't tested once the CPU was overclocked but this is after all a video card review and not a GTAIV performance article

 

Ah finally! Now I can read all my boredom away. Thanks, DH.

 

Great review, the best I've read so far.

 

No, I meant building the test system and I was joking too.

 

absolutely brilliant guys. best read this year by a long shot. very educational.

 

Stuart outstanding review dude !!

Video card reviews are by far the most difficult and time consuming to do especially one involving this scope.

The GTX 295 is looking good and nice to see both companies concentrating on different aspects of these devices. There are pros or cons for both as we can see ... and competition is advantageous for US the consumer

 

Wow thats a lot to digest iin one sitting. Good job. Are all your temps taken with GPU fans on auto or a preset fan speed?

 

thx for the hard work & excellent info!!!!
i have a oc vers ofthe 280 right now, from what i saw on the physix(sp) it appears(assuming i can even fit it in there with pcie cl card) that the most cost effective upgrade path would be something like a 9800gtx+ or even lower graphics card. buying a 285 & using my 280 doesnt seem justified given the price/performance i saw in your tests. wich is good news!
bty, ty for doing the physix part. as i was reading thru it i was thinking 'ill have to post a request for a physix comparison with a 9000 series card(&hope u have the time)'. went thru a couple more pages & there it was!

 

Grate review guys but these cards are priced crazy equivalent to the average salary of a person here lol

the 295 that is

 

Just ordered a 295 based on this review. rather expensive, but going on this review it will give me the best performance for my games.

Glad I waited on the DH masterpiece, so many naff reviews up on these boards.

 

holy crap batman. what a mega mega review that was. found this site on google and what a find !

 

Fans are left on auto as the stats should show what ATI/Nvidia feel reasonable/acceptable temperatures are.... its also the performance that 90+% of end users will see.

 

Thats pretty much what i figured, I tend set mine to a level thats comparable to the noise level of my system fans. The current card i am playing with i leave the fan speed at 50% and it does not over power any other fan noise

 

Hey Z , sorry for this off-topic question but will the new i7 system be the standard DH test system from now on ? and did it perform better than skulltraill even with the dual_quad cpu and 16 GB Ram???.