[H]ard|OCP

Navigation

• [H] Forums
• Archives
• Search
• [H] Folding

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 295 Preview

NVIDIA has designed a dual-GPU, albeit dual-PCB, video card to compete with AMD’s wildly successful Radeon HD 4870 X2 card that is a dual-GPU yet single-PCB design. We preview this new video card and explore gameplay performance in three popular and graphically demanding games. Old GX2 series owners are already backing away.

Introduction

The concept of multi-GPU video cards dates back quite a while. NVIDIA has pushed single package multi-GPU cards for a while now with a couple of short lived “GX2” offerings, the 9800 GX2 and the 7950 GX2. AMD has made famous this concept with its Radeon HD 3870 X2 and Radeon HD 4870 X2. The power of two GPUs on a single Printed Circuit Board (PCB) rather than two PCBs sandwiched together.

The 4870 X2 has filled a market that NVIDIA has not had a foothold in at all. The 4870 X2 is a better performing card than the GTX 280 overall, and in order to get better performance than that from NVIDIA’s offerings you needed to go GTX 280 SLI, and that gets very expensive. NVIDIA is answering the challenge of the 4870 X2 by delivering the GeForce GTX 295. It’s not a “GX2,” but really it is. The GTX 295 design is much more elegant that what we were exposed to in the past with the GX2. So while some might argue, it looks as though leaving the plagued GX2 moniker behind is not only a good idea but a just idea as well. Surely time will tell though, but our gut feeling is that support moving forward on this product will not be as slipshod as what GX2 support has proven to be in the past.

GTX 295

The GeForce GTX 295 contains two new 55nm GTX 200 series GPUs. The move to 55nm means less power, less heat, and potentially higher clocks; though that latter benefit is not utilized with this video card most likely due to the close quarters of our two pieces of silicon. The interesting part here is the number of processing cores and memory configuration on each GPU. NVIDIA states that the new GPU specification sits “between” a GeForce GTX 260 (216 core) and GeForce GTX 280. We tend to disagree with this assessment. In our opinion it leans closer to the GeForce GTX 260 (216 core) than it does a GeForce GTX 280.

It is true that each GPU now has 240 processing cores; same as the GeForce GTX 280. However, the core frequency, processor core frequency, and memory frequency all operate at stock GeForce GTX 260 frequencies. You will find the core at 576MHz, shader clock at 1.242GHz and memory frequency right at 2GHz. At this point you could say, well, it is just a slower clocked GeForce GTX 280, but what really makes it a GTX 260 in our minds besides the clock similarity is the memory configuration.

The memory is composed of 896MB of GDDR3 per GPU, same as the GTX 260 and the memory bus is 448-bit, same as the GTX 260. A GeForce GTX 280 has 1GB of GDDR3 and a 512-bit bus. When you combine the fact about the clock frequencies, and the memory, to us it just seems like a GTX 260 with all the shader cores turned on. Your mileage may vary.

With that in mind though, we do have the power of two of these GPUs in a single two slot package, to provide greater performance. Think souped-up GTX 260 SLI. As stated, the 55nm GPUs help reduce power usage compared to its 65nm predecessors. This means this video card has a total board power of 289 watts. It will require one 6-pin PCIe and one 8-pin PCIe power connector. The recommended power supply for a single GTX 295 is 680 watts. You can also put two of these in a computer for a Quad-SLI configuration leveraging four GPUs.

Unfortunately, due to the nature of SLI (as this board is simply two PCBs with an SLI bridge) the memory is not shared, so only 896MB is available per GPU. Think GeForce previous GX2 models.

This evaluation is going to serve as a “preview” of the GTX 295. Retail availability will not be until January 8th for this video card. This is simply a preview to show you guys what you can expect performance-wise. Do expect a full retail evaluation from us with more games and more testing later on. NVIDIA is introducing this video card at $499. Compare that to GTX 260 SLI at around $400 and it raises some questions.

GTX 295 Pictures

Here is an exploded view of the video card provided by NVIDIA. What is important to note here is that NVIDIA is using an improved cooling solution compared to the GeForce 9800 GX2. With the fact that this cooling unit can dissipate 289 watts of power NVIDIA claims this is a 46% improvement over the cooling solution used in the 9800 GX2.

The GeForce GTX 295 is exactly the same length as a Radeon HD 4870 X2. As you can see, it is a dual-slot design and will exhaust air out the back and the side, right into your case. The fan is unique; it pulls air between the PCBs. If you have two of these configured in close quarters, both will be able to get air for each card. We can argue about exhausting the heated air into the case, rather than out, but NVIDIA has solved it problem with keeping its GPUs cool. It will be up to you to keep the rest of your computer at acceptable temperature levels. The GTX 295 is not going to make that easier though.

The GTX 295 requires one each 6-pin PCIe and one each 8-pin PCIe power connector. There is an exposed SLI bridge on the video card for Quad-SLI support. You will find dual-link DVI ports on board as well as an HDMI connector. When SLI is disabled, (in Multi-Monitor mode) you will be able to drive three displays from this single video card using the DVI ports and the HDMI port. In SLI mode, only two displays are supported at this time.

There are two LEDs on the bracket. The green LED indicates if there is proper power. If you do not connect one of the power connectors in correctly it will light up red. The blue indicator tells you which video card is in the primary header to plug your monitor(s) into. (Editor: We are getting more clarification on this.)