Nvidia GTX 295 - good gawd!

[blast3r]

This card is insane. I have to have one!

BFG TECH, GeForce® GTX 295 576MHz, 1792MB GDDR3 1998MHz, PCIe x16 SLI, DVI /2, HDMI, Retail

http://www.avadirect.com/image.asp?name=VCX-BFG-BFGEGTX2951792E.jpg

Overview:

BFG NVIDIA GeForce GTX 295 1792MB PCIe 2.0

Backed by BFG Tech's famous Lifetime Warranty and free 24/7/365 tech support, the BFG NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 295 graphics card features the power of two GTX 200 Series processors on one graphics card. This superfast graphics card delivers unrivaled graphics performance in the hottest DirectX 10 games, including Far Cry 2, Mirrors Edge, and Call of Duty: World at War. Combine two BFG GeForce GTX 295 graphics cards to create a Quad NVIDIA® SLI® configuration and take your gaming performance to extreme levels.

Experience Graphics Plus™
The BFG GeForce GTX 295 graphics card with NVIDIA® CUDA™ technology not only provides a world-class gaming experience, it also delivers Graphics Plus™. Experience jaw-dropping NVIDIA® PhysX™ gaming effects, stereoscopic 3D, and lightning fast video and image processing all accelerated by the graphics card.

GAMING
NVIDIA® PhysX™ technology brings your games to life with massively destructible environments and ultra-realistic physical interaction in games such as Mirror’s Edge

Quad NVIDIA® SLI® technology and 1792MB of dedicated graphics memory deliver breathtaking frame rates and total graphics bliss with game settings and resolution maxed out (2560x1600)

Experience ultimate graphics performance in the hottest DirectX 10 games such as Far Cry 2

GRAPHICS PLUS™ WITH CUDA™
Accelerates video transcoding of digital movies to your iPod, PSP, or Zune up to 20x faster than a CPU

Experience GPU-accelerated video enhancement capabilities to convert low quality video from cameras, camcorders, and cell phones to higher resolutions

Run over 350 games in stereoscopic 3D with full graphics card support for GeForce® 3D Vision™*

Experience super fast, silky smooth image processing with full GPU acceleration support for Adobe® Photoshop® CS4

* Stereoscopic 3D requires a stereoscopic-ready display and glasses.

2nd Generation NVIDIA® Unified Architecture
Second generation architecture delivers 50% more gaming performance over the first generation through enhanced processor cores that provide incredible shading horsepower.

Quad NVIDIA SLI® Technology i
Industry leading QuadNVIDIA SLI technology offers amazing performance scaling by implementing 4-way AFR (Alternate Frame Rendering) for the world’s premier gaming solution under Windows Vista with solid, state-of-the-art drivers.

Microsoft® DirectX® 10 Support
DirectX 10 GPU with full Shader Model 4.0 support delivers unparalleled levels of graphics realism and film-quality effects for today's hottest games.

NVIDIA CUDA™ Technology ii
CUDA technology unlocks the power of the GPU’s processor cores to accelerate the most demanding system tasks - such as video transcoding - delivering up to 20x performance over traditional CPUs.

PCI Express® 2.0 Support
Designed for the new PCI Express 2.0 bus architecture offering the highest data transfer speeds for the most bandwidth-hungry games and 3D applications, while maintaining backwards compatibility with existing PCI Express motherboards for the broadest support.

NVIDIA SLI® Multi-Monitor support
Switch seamlessly between multi-display desktop mode and full screen 3D gaming with SLI. And enjoy full multi-GPU support for dual-display capable 3D games such as World in Conflict, Supreme Commander Forged Alliance, and Flight Simulator X.

GigaThread™ Technology
Massively multi-threaded architecture supports thousands of independent, simultaneous threads, providing extreme processing efficiency in advanced, next generation shader programs.

NVIDIA Lumenex™ Engine
Delivers stunning image quality and floating point accuracy with ultra-fast frame rates.

16x Anti-aliasing Technology
Lightning fast, high-quality anti-aliasing at up to 16x sample rates obliterates jagged edges.

128-bit floating point High Dynamic-Range (HDR) Lighting
Twice the precision of prior generations for incredibly realistic lighting effects—now with support for anti-aliasing.

OpenGL® 2.1 Optimizations and Support
Provides top-notch compatibility and performance for OpenGL applications.

Dual Dual-link DVI Support
Able to drive the industry’s largest and highest resolution flat-panel displays up to 2560x1600 and with support for High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection (HDCP). iii

HDMI Output
Support for HDMI output enables sending both high-definition video and audio signals to an HDTV via a single cable.

NVIDIA PureVideo® HD Technologyi v
The combination of high-definition video decode acceleration and post-processing that delivers unprecedented picture clarity, smooth video, accurate color, and precise image scaling for movies and video.

Discrete, Programmable Video Processor
NVIDIA PureVideo is a discrete programmable processing core in NVIDIA GPUs that provides superb picture quality and ultra-smooth movies with 100% offload of H.264 video decoding from the CPU and significantly reduced power consumption.

Dual-stream Hardware Acceleration
Supports picture-in-picture content for the ultimate interactive Blu-ray movie experience.

Dynamic Contrast Enhancement & Color Stretch
Dynamically provides post-processing and optimization of High Definition movies for spectacular picture clarity.

Specifications:

GPU Dual NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 295
Core Clock 576MHz
Shader Clock 1242MHz
Shader Model 4.0
Texture Fill Rate 92.2 Billion/sec. (Combined)
Stream Processors 480 (Combined)
Memory
Video Memory 1792MB (Combined)
Memory Type GDDR3
Memory Data Rate 1998MHz
Memory Interface 896-bit (Combined)
Memory Bandwidth 223.8GB/sec. (Combined)
Connections
Bus Type PCI Express® 2.0 (Backward compatible with PCI Express®)
Display Connectors 2 Dual-Link DVI-I, HDMI™ Out
Multiple Monitor Support Yes
HDCP Capable Yes, Dual link (Requires other compatible components which are HDCP capable. Designed to meet the output protection management (HDCP) and security specifications of the Blu-ray Disc and HD DVD formats, allowing the playback of encrypted movie content on PCs when connected to HDCP-compliant displays)
HDMI® Capable Yes
NVIDIA® SLI® Support Yes, Quad
Included In Box
BFG NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 295 1792MB graphics card
Quick install guide
DVI to VGA adapter
HDMI™ cable (6 ft.)
S/PDIF audio cable (1 ft.)
Dual 4-pin peripheral to single 6-pin PCI Express® power adapter
Dual 6-pin PCI Express to single 8-pin PCI Express® power adapter
Driver CD, which includes: NVIDIA ForceWare unified graphics drivers and Full Multiple Language Installation Manual.pdf
Minimum System Requirements
2GB of system memory
CD or DVD-ROM drive
100MB of available hard disk drive space for basic driver installation
Microsoft® Windows Vista™ or XP operating system (Windows Vista™ required for Quad NVIDIA SLI®)
PCI Express® or PCI Express® 2.0-compliant system motherboard with one vacant PCI Express® x16 slot
One vacant add-in card slot below the PCI Express® x16 slot. This graphics card physically occupies two slots
680W PCI Express®-compliant system power supply with a combined 12V current rating of 46A or more (Minimum system power requirement based on a PC configured with an Intel Core™i7 965 Extreme Edition processor)
One 8-pin and one 6-pin PCI Express® supplementary power connector -or- Two 6-pin PCI Express® and two 4-pin peripheral supplementary power connectors

[Yo-Yo Freak]

IMO over priced and over rated, 2x one kind of GPU will all ways be better then dual GPU cards IMHO. just because of the fact that if one dies you still have one to play off of vs the dual GPU card dieing and having nothing... its rare, but it happens.

but that doesn't mean i don't wish i could try one out =P looks totally awesome and very powerful.

~YYF

[Mercurio]

Not bad at all.

And less than $100 more than a GTX280 for almost twice the GPU memory. Some seem to be saying it isn't worth the money, but dropping $400 for a GTX280 or $500 for a GTX295? A 20% increase in price doesn't sound bad.

I guess the real price point you might want to look at (for high-end Nvidia cards anyway) might be the GTX260, which is more like $250. Since the 260 is a nice card, I can definitely see an argument against spending double to get the GTX295. But it IS the "fastest gaming card in the world" - at least for a few weeks. ;)

[-silencer-]

Not bad at all.

And less than $100 more than a GTX280 for almost twice the GPU memory. Some seem to be saying it isn't worth the money, but dropping $400 for a GTX280 or $500 for a GTX295? A 20% increase in price doesn't sound bad.

I guess the real price point you might want to look at (for high-end Nvidia cards anyway) might be the GTX260, which is more like $250. Since the 260 is a nice card, I can definitely see an argument against spending double to get the GTX295. But it IS the "fastest gaming card in the world" - at least for a few weeks. ;)

First, the GTX280 can be found on newegg for a mere $315. Second, 2x GTX280's ($630) are faster than a GTX295 ($500) because the GTX295 isn't two GTX280 GPUs: it's two GTX260 GPUs.

I'm more excited about the GTX 285.. that's the fastest single GPU *chip* available... it's a process step smaller (lower heat/power consumption) and overclock of the GTX280 chip. Watch the benchmarks for 2xGTX285's vs a GTX295.. the 285's will be much faster since it's a faster GPU chip.

Looks cool, but i'm not excited about the cost of a dual-PCB waterblock, nor the fact that you can't reduce the card to just one 1 motherboard slot used by watercooling.

Here's the real competition.. the benefits of the GTX285 with waterblock:
- only uses *1* slot on the motherboard. You can now use that PCI-x1 slot under the x16. You can never do that with a dual-PCB card.
- fastest single chip available, PLUS you can overclock on water for more speed. You're not penalized by those games that suck in SLI/Crossfire.
- better price.. and slightly slower. The costs for a waterblock on a dual-PCB card like the GTX295 (and 9800GX2) is another $40-50 more than single-PCB cards.

Now, GTX285 in SLI will be slick.. however, my view is that DX11 and GT300/RV870 are coming out later this year, and your current card likely is DX10 compatible, so why bother upgrading now if you have an 8800 or better? $500 in 6-9 months will destroy current cards and offer DX11 compatibility. Buying a $500 card now is like buying an Intel P4 system 6 months before the release of Conroe.. you'll likely regret it. If you need a new card now, get a good mid-range card that will keep you happy until then.. $240 for an HD4870-1GB or so.. then you just saved $260+ for a real upgrade when DX11 is out. Yes, the GTX295/285 is nice, but it's merely a smaller process and overclock (or dual-gpu), and not a new architecture. Performance usually is leaps ahead with new architecture, so THAT's the time to buy a high-end part, not just a smaller process.

[blast3r]

I was running two 8800 GTS cards but was having problems with them overheating so I took one out and the performance is a bit crappy. slugish. so, today i went to newegg.com and bought the gtx 295! can't wait

[blast3r]

Got my card today and sitting here at work just watching the clock tick soooo slowly. but my home computer is turned off and waiting for me to get there and put this bad boy inside. can't wait...can't waittttt!

[Sam DeathWalker]

I will bet you will find that your fps bottleneck is not the video cards ...

That being said this single card solution is way better then SLI duel cards or whatever.

What Silencer said in this thread I agree.

[Noids99]

I normally do agree with Silencer, but I think I differ a little here. First of all the GTX295 actually is more like 2 underclocked 280s than 2 x 260s considering the chips are running 240 pipes rather than the 216 on the most recent 260s. It is capped by using the slightly slower 260 memory interface and clock speeds, but given the 55nm architecture, it can overclock to 280 speeds quite comfortably. Saying that, it seems to perform somewhere between SLIed 260s and 280s.

With regards to waiting until later in the year for new technology, this can always be a trap with IT IMO. Again you are going to be stuck being the guinea pig for untried technology which may also become obsolete fairly quickly. There are definitely jumps in tech improvements, but by and large, the "wait to upgrade" mentality can get you caught in a vicious neverending cycle.

What I like about the GTX295 is that for less $$ than 2 x 280s you get comparable performance and much less power consumption/heat production. Being the "fastest single card" offering at the moment generally means there are always going to be better value options out there, but I think the 295 still has a fairly clear niche in the market at this stage. Unless you are looking for something to pump out high quality DX10 graphics at 2560X1600, you are probably better off going with a single gpu option at this stage from a price/performance perspective.

[blast3r]

Running this card in regular mode (non-SLI) and it is doing a lot better job than the previous cards. I had a bad heat problem when I was running dual cards before now that is gone. No more sluggishness at all. I realize there will still be lag issues but I am happy so far.

[Mercurio]

Nice Sham, I'm glad you've got it in your rig.

We'll have to compare performance, as my new system will be ready next week and I splurged and stuck a 295 in it too.

For the Mag Horde GTX295ers! Of course, you know this means you now have no excuses about not seeing the fire circles in Obsidian Sanctum! ;)