EVGA GeForce GTX 295+ Review

Wreckage

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http://www.xbitlabs.com/articl...ga-geforce-gtx295.html

Summing everything up, we can say that Nvidia has come up not with just a competitive dual-core graphics cards, but with the best-in-class solution which is far superior to its AMD counterpart in performance in modern games as well as in other consumer properties such as power consumption, noisiness and heat dissipation. Nvidia?s programmers did a good job, too. It is the first time in our tests that a multi-GPU card from Nvidia is actually free from any compatibility and performance problems, being superior to the Radeon HD 4870 X2 in this respect, too.
 

alcoholbob

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Wow, review has minimum framerates! Well done. GTX285 numbers would have been nice to see how SLI vs X2 would be in terms of minimum fps.

What I am surprised at is that the 260 SLI still does better than 280 SLI in some cases such as in Crysis...
 

Elfear

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Interesting article. They seem to come to a different conclusion than a lot of other review sites but I like that they test the 4870X3 along with the other cards.
 

SlowSpyder

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I think we all, for the most part, universally agree that the GTX295 is the 'better' card of the two. The 4870x2 is $100 cheaper as a result of the GTX295 launch, so it is still a very attractive bang for the buck option, and still not exactly slow. The GTX295 came out, what, 5 months after the 4870x2 and after Nvidia had an architecture shrink? I'm willing to bet that AMD will have the next x2 card out (before Nvidia has their next x2 card) that takes back the performance lead. Then Nvidia will answer again, and so on and so fourth... the cycle repeats. This of course assumes that AMD and Nvidia stay in business. :)
 

toyota

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Originally posted by: SlowSpyder
I think we all, for the most part, universally agree that the GTX295 is the 'better' card of the two. The 4870x2 is $100 cheaper as a result of the GTX295 launch, so it is still a very attractive bang for the buck option, and still not exactly slow. The GTX295 came out, what, 5 months after the 4870x2 and after Nvidia had an architecture shrink? I'm willing to bet that AMD will have the next x2 card out (before Nvidia has their next x2 card) that takes back the performance lead. Then Nvidia will answer again, and so on and so fourth... the cycle repeats. This of course assumes that AMD and Nvidia stay in business. :)

Nvidia only releases the sandwich card if needed so I hope their next gen single gpu card is equal or better than ATIs next gen dual gpu card.
 

Elfear

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Originally posted by: SlowSpyder
I think we all, for the most part, universally agree that the GTX295 is the 'better' card of the two. The 4870x2 is $100 cheaper as a result of the GTX295 launch, so it is still a very attractive bang for the buck option, and still not exactly slow.

Probably just semantics but I would say the 295 is the faster card but not necessarily the better card. For the reason you listed ($100 cheaper) I still think the 4870X2 is the better buy right now unless your favorite game is one of the few where the 295 has a decent lead and the X2 has unplayable framerates.
 

nRollo

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Originally posted by: Elfear
Originally posted by: SlowSpyder
I think we all, for the most part, universally agree that the GTX295 is the 'better' card of the two. The 4870x2 is $100 cheaper as a result of the GTX295 launch, so it is still a very attractive bang for the buck option, and still not exactly slow.

Probably just semantics but I would say the 295 is the faster card but not necessarily the better card. For the reason you listed ($100 cheaper) I still think the 4870X2 is the better buy right now unless your favorite game is one of the few where the 295 has a decent lead and the X2 has unplayable framerates.

If I were making this choice today there's no way I'd lock myself out of PhysX and 3D Vision for $100 savings on a card that's slower anyway.

Not to mention the 4870X2 isn't $100 cheaper:

BFG GTX295 for $439.99, no rebates

Unless you can link us to a 4870X2 for $339?

BTW- newegg has one for $469.99 AMIR

 

SlowSpyder

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Originally posted by: Elfear
Originally posted by: SlowSpyder
I think we all, for the most part, universally agree that the GTX295 is the 'better' card of the two. The 4870x2 is $100 cheaper as a result of the GTX295 launch, so it is still a very attractive bang for the buck option, and still not exactly slow.

Probably just semantics but I would say the 295 is the faster card but not necessarily the better card. For the reason you listed ($100 cheaper) I still think the 4870X2 is the better buy right now unless your favorite game is one of the few where the 295 has a decent lead and the X2 has unplayable framerates.

You're right, I meant better performer. I think the 4870x2 is still better bang for the buck, but not the overall better performer.

Rollo, I was just talking prices that I've seen on average... that's a good deal for the GTX295. I did see a deal for the 4870x2 for $345, but that is dead now. So you're right, right now it's less then $100 more. But once that deal is dead from what I've seen $100 is the number I remember it being pretty consistantly the price difference. Maybe Nvidia has lowered prices and the difference will be less from here on out. Unless is is pretty close to the 4870x2 price... like $30 more it's still not a better buy to me, though it is the better performer in general.

And although you wouldn't lock your self out of Physx or 3D, I wouldn't put a second worth of thought into my purchasing decision for either of those yet. Different strokes for different folks.
 

Elfear

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Originally posted by: nRollo

If I were making this choice today there's no way I'd lock myself out of PhysX and 3D Vision for $100 savings on a card that's slower anyway.

Not to mention the 4870X2 isn't $100 cheaper:

BFG GTX295 for $439.99, no rebates

Unless you can link us to a 4870X2 for $339?

BTW- newegg has one for $469.99 AMIR

Like Slowspyder mentioned, on average the price difference has been ~$100 and with Darkrage's link the difference is actually $120. ;)

I think Physx and 3D Vision are cool concepts but by the time enough games support Physx (and 3D Vision is actually reasonably priced) there will be much better video cards out on the market. At this point in time I don't think those features are much of a selling point. You may think my opinion is biased considering the card in my sig but I have had an equal # of cards from both camps. Performance, stability, and price are the name of the game for me regardless of brand. Features would come next but only if they are widely usable.

Edited for clarity
 

nRollo

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Originally posted by: Elfear
Originally posted by: nRollo

If I were making this choice today there's no way I'd lock myself out of PhysX and 3D Vision for $100 savings on a card that's slower anyway.

Not to mention the 4870X2 isn't $100 cheaper:

BFG GTX295 for $439.99, no rebates

Unless you can link us to a 4870X2 for $339?

BTW- newegg has one for $469.99 AMIR

Like Slowspyder mentioned, on average the price difference has been ~$100 and with Darkrage's link the difference is actually $120. ;)

I think Physx and 3D Vision are cool concepts but by the time enough games support Physx and 3D Vision is actually reasonably priced, there will be much better video cards out on the market. At this point in time I don't think those features are much of a selling point.

There are LOTS of games that support 3D Vision very well, very few PhysX games so far. However many more are launching this year. Cryostasis next month, and I've read another title in April.

In any case, both are good cards, I'm just pretty high on 3D Vision these days. I've gamed more in the last month than I did the 3 before it. Tonight I played Painkiller and Serious Sam 2 for a couple hours, and I never thought I'd play them again.
 

Elfear

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Originally posted by: nRollo
Originally posted by: Elfear
Originally posted by: nRollo

If I were making this choice today there's no way I'd lock myself out of PhysX and 3D Vision for $100 savings on a card that's slower anyway.

Not to mention the 4870X2 isn't $100 cheaper:

BFG GTX295 for $439.99, no rebates

Unless you can link us to a 4870X2 for $339?

BTW- newegg has one for $469.99 AMIR

Like Slowspyder mentioned, on average the price difference has been ~$100 and with Darkrage's link the difference is actually $120. ;)

I think Physx and 3D Vision are cool concepts but by the time enough games support Physx and 3D Vision is actually reasonably priced, there will be much better video cards out on the market. At this point in time I don't think those features are much of a selling point.

There are LOTS of games that support 3D Vision very well, very few PhysX games so far. However many more are launching this year. Cryostasis next month, and I've read another title in April.

In any case, both are good cards, I'm just pretty high on 3D Vision these days. I've gamed more in the last month than I did the 3 before it. Tonight I played Painkiller and Serious Sam 2 for a couple hours, and I never thought I'd play them again.

Ya, sorry for the confusion. I edited my post to make my sentence more clear. There are a lot of games out now that support 3D Vision. I would like to give it a try if I had a buddy with that setup or a store nearby.
 

alcoholbob

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Anyone come across reviews with minimum framerates for SLI GT200b cards? Only one I've seen is firingsquad and they only list them for seemingly irrelevant games.
 

dadach

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cool...4870x3 is the way to go for the high resolution gaming...although they should have tested 2 of dual nvidia cards, to try to counter atis preformance at the ultimate level...nice review ;)
 

nRollo

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Originally posted by: dadach
cool...4870x3 is the way to go for the high resolution gaming...although they should have tested 2 of dual nvidia cards, to try to counter atis preformance at the ultimate level...nice review ;)

:confused:

So you think it's a fair comparisoon to compare a 3 GPU ATi solution that costs over $600 to a dual GPU NVIDIA solution that costs less than $500? (as low as $439)

I see.

Do you think it might make more sense to compare three 4870s to three GTX260s on a cost basis, or three GTX280s or GTX285s if you wanted to look at "the ultimate level"?


For me the most interesting part of that article was:

As is the case with Call of Duty: World at War, the screenshots do not show any significant image quality improvements. There is a difference but you have to search for it with special tools like The Compressonator. It cannot be spotted in a dynamic game. This is another argument to support the point that the extreme antialiasing modes the GPU developers put so much emphasis on are more of a marketing trick rather than a real means of improving image quality in practical applications.

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articl...e-gtx295_10.html#sect1

Sort of debunks the "8XAA is the only thing that matters!" argument we see so often these days.
 

BFG10K

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Originally posted by: nRollo

Sort of debunks the "8XAA is the only thing that matters!" argument we see so often these days.
No-one was using that argument. The argument was that it provides a visible benefit over 4xMSAA and this is trivial to prove with both screenshots and in-game during movement.

Not only that, but from the same site (it must be the third reviewer who is more switched on about AA):

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articl...n-hd4850_19.html#sect0

ATI?s edge detect CFAA 12x mode shows excellent results, outperforming MSAA 4x in anti-aliasing quality. You can clearly see it on the columns in the screenshot from TES IV: Oblivion. Adaptive filter does its job and the edges do indeed look much neater, without any washed-out effect.

In the meanwhile, CSAA 16x mode turns out closer to the classical MSAA 4x than to MSAA 8x, because ?16? in its name refers only to the coverage resolution, just like the ?8? in CSAA 8x. Polygon edges are detected better, however the final pixel color can be calculated more precisely only with fully-fledged MSAA 8x.So, the anti-aliasing quality is much higher in the latter case.

Although ATI?s edge detect 24x mode uses the same number of color and Z samples, it demonstrates much better anti-aliasing quality than Nvidia GeForce?s CSAA 16xQ.
So this confirms exactly what I?ve been saying:

  1. 8xMSAA is visibly superior to 8xCSAA and even 16xCSAA.
  2. For pure edge anti-aliasing, ATi has the crown. This is important to those people that object to super-sampling on the basis that it blurs the entire scene. I?m not one of those people because in my experience the blurring is trivial at worst, most of the time only slightly visible with a massively zoomed screenshot. Of course the visible gain in IQ in-game more than compensates.
 

nRollo

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Originally posted by: BFG10K
Originally posted by: nRollo

Sort of debunks the "8XAA is the only thing that matters!" argument we see so often these days.
No-one was using that argument. The argument was that it provides a visible benefit over 4xMSAA and this is trivial to prove with both screenshots and in-game during movement.

Not only that, but from the same site (it must be the third reviewer who is more switched on about AA):

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articl...n-hd4850_19.html#sect0

ATI?s edge detect CFAA 12x mode shows excellent results, outperforming MSAA 4x in anti-aliasing quality. You can clearly see it on the columns in the screenshot from TES IV: Oblivion. Adaptive filter does its job and the edges do indeed look much neater, without any washed-out effect.

In the meanwhile, CSAA 16x mode turns out closer to the classical MSAA 4x than to MSAA 8x, because ?16? in its name refers only to the coverage resolution, just like the ?8? in CSAA 8x. Polygon edges are detected better, however the final pixel color can be calculated more precisely only with fully-fledged MSAA 8x.So, the anti-aliasing quality is much higher in the latter case.

Although ATI?s edge detect 24x mode uses the same number of color and Z samples, it demonstrates much better anti-aliasing quality than Nvidia GeForce?s CSAA 16xQ.
So this confirms exactly what I?ve been saying:

  1. 8xMSAA is visibly superior to 8xCSAA and even 16xCSAA.
  2. For pure edge anti-aliasing, ATi has the crown. This is important to those people that object to super-sampling on the basis that it blurs the entire scene. I?m not one of those people because in my experience the blurring is trivial at worst, most of the time only slightly visible with a massively zoomed screenshot. Of course the visible gain in IQ in-game more than compensates.

You left out the best quote on that page you linked to BFG10K:

In MSAA 8x mode anti-aliasing is way better although it is hard to notice at first, especially in real games rather than on static screenshots.

Sounds like a deal maker/breaker, performance on the feature that is "hard to notice at first" and "cannot be spotted in the dynamic game".

Don't know about you, but I'm not usually running Compressionator software while gaming to find the differences my eyes can't easily see!
 

BFG10K

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Originally posted by: nRollo

You left out the best quote on that page you linked to BFG10K:

In MSAA 8x mode anti-aliasing is way better although it is hard to notice at first, especially in real games rather than on static screenshots.

What part, the part where they say it's way better? Their screenshots and commentary clearly show 24xAA is better than 16xQ, so there's absolutely no doubt that 8xMSAA is better than 4xAA.

In-game during movement 8xMSAA is visibly better than 4xMSAA with finely detailed objects at long range, especially if they?re pointing at random or unorthodox angles. That and 8xTrMS is visibly better than 4xTRMS, especially on alpha textures with hard edges.
 

nitromullet

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Originally posted by: Elfear
Like Slowspyder mentioned, on average the price difference has been ~$100 and with Darkrage's link the difference is actually $120. ;)

The largest price difference on Newegg is $100. HIS 4870 X2 for $409.99 AMIR and Asus GTX 295 for $509.99. On average the price difference is not even $100, and at $439.99 the GTX 295 Rollo linked to is the cheaper out-of-pocket card between the two.

 

Denithor

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One thing that confuses me about these multiGPU setups: memory bandwidth.

I know 2x1GB =/= 2GB frame buffer but the review sites & specs seem to state that memory bandwidth, on the other hand, does simply multiply across the two cards (ie 2x448-bit = 896-bit). How does this work?

In the past it looked like these dualGPU hybrids were a "stop-gap" solution until the next generation could be launched with higher performance (ie 7900GX2 -> 8800 series) but now it looks like the dual (or even triple) setup might become the standard for ultra-high res+AA gaming?

Finally, it's too bad xbit didn't include the single 4870 & the 4850X2 in their lineup. The 4850X2 with 2x1GB VRAM is actually an impressive performer, we just need someone other than Sapphire to make one (with quieter fans & better service).
 

Wreckage

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Originally posted by: nitromullet
Originally posted by: Elfear
Like Slowspyder mentioned, on average the price difference has been ~$100 and with Darkrage's link the difference is actually $120. ;)

The largest price difference on Newegg is $100. HIS 4870 X2 for $409.99 AMIR and Asus GTX 295 for $509.99. On average the price difference is not even $100, and at $439.99 the GTX 295 Rollo linked to is the cheaper out-of-pocket card between the two.

Yeah I think their cost argument is irrelevant at this point.

The AA argument has also been done to death. Most people don't notice a difference beyond 4X or they don't care. It is funny when some people will say that PhysX is unimportant eye candy but will argue that one level of AA or another is a game changing life altering event. Ha!
 

SirPaulie

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It all depends on tastes and eye of the individual over-all. More edge AA is always welcomed based on some do enjoy more quality on edges than others. There is the choice of no AA, x2, x4 AA, x8 AA - with the choice of enhancing utilizing CFAA and CSAA features........really believe most will agree there is plenty of edge flexibility for end-users here.

x8 MSAA is welcomed for me based on the tougher areas -- strong color and lighting contrasts at certain angles while moving but for others? May not bother them at all -- which is all good.

PhysX is nice based on they're software tools that may allow more dynamic content now while open standards are defined and eventually mature.





 

Elfear

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Originally posted by: nitromullet
Originally posted by: Elfear
Like Slowspyder mentioned, on average the price difference has been ~$100 and with Darkrage's link the difference is actually $120. ;)

The largest price difference on Newegg is $100. HIS 4870 X2 for $409.99 AMIR and Asus GTX 295 for $509.99. On average the price difference is not even $100, and at $439.99 the GTX 295 Rollo linked to is the cheaper out-of-pocket card between the two.

You're right, sorry. I must have been working off the other mathematics system. :eek:


Originally posted by: taltamir
physx is significantly more important than AA IMO.

Fixed.

I think Physx is a cool concept but it needs more implementation in games before it becomes "significantly more important" and even then I'm dubious. AA can be applied in almost any game.
 

SlowSpyder

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Originally posted by: Wreckage
Originally posted by: nitromullet
Originally posted by: Elfear
Like Slowspyder mentioned, on average the price difference has been ~$100 and with Darkrage's link the difference is actually $120. ;)

The largest price difference on Newegg is $100. HIS 4870 X2 for $409.99 AMIR and Asus GTX 295 for $509.99. On average the price difference is not even $100, and at $439.99 the GTX 295 Rollo linked to is the cheaper out-of-pocket card between the two.

Yeah I think their cost argument is irrelevant at this point.

The AA argument has also been done to death. Most people don't notice a difference beyond 4X or they don't care. It is funny when some people will say that PhysX is unimportant eye candy but will argue that one level of AA or another is a game changing life altering event. Ha!

If these are the new prices, then you're right, the price is close enough that the GTX295 would be a better buy quite possibly. What I meant by 'on average' is that whenever I looked in the past it was always very near $100, almost always. I'm not sure if these are the new prices, or these are just some hot deals that we won't see again. Like I mentioned earlier, there was just a deal that is dead now where the 4870x2 was $345.