Geforce GTX 295 previews

[Cookie Monster]

This is only a beta product, so we might see some change before the actual retail product hits. Hopefully they decide to go with the full 1GB x2 instead of 896MB x2.

 

[chizow]

Originally posted by: Timorous
There was no 9800GX2 in that preview

Also with regard to crysis, If you look at the Very High 2560x1600 the 4870X2 achieves a 25% higher min frame rate but a 10% lower average. When you drop the settings down to High and put on 2x AA the 4870X2 is just about playable but the 295 is no where near.

At the sort of settings you would expect to run these graphics cards at the 295 does not seem to provide the performance increase over the 4870X2 I would have expected.

I also expect that due to the 295's lower bandwidth and less memory the 4870X2 might well manage to last longer assuming games continue eating up more vram and bandwidth.

I suppose Nvidia specced it like this so that 280's in sli is faster so they can still sell their SLi chipsets.

It feels like the 3870X2 vs the 8800Ultra, nice part, a bit faster in general but too late and not as impressive as people were hoping for.

I wouldn't completely rule out immature drivers for Crysis DX10, as the 295 falls back into line at the same settings but with DX9. Still, would be a shame if this part fell short due to VRAM and bus width, but I agree its because they wanted GTX 280/285 in Tri-SLI on i7 for the halo effect.

Anyways, what I found the most shocking was how CPU bottlenecked all the high-end parts are up until 2560 and in many cases 2560 with 8xAA. Even with Core i7 @ 3.6-3.8GHz all the faster SLI/CF solutions are within a few FPS of each other.

 

[WelshBloke]

Originally posted by: Cookie Monster
This is only a beta product, so we might see some change before the actual retail product hits. Hopefully they decide to go with the full 1GB x2 instead of 896MB x2.

Since when does beta hardware get released to review sites?

I dont think much is going to be changed, that said I dont think much needs to be changed.

 

[nRollo]

Originally posted by: WelshBloke

Originally posted by: Cookie Monster
This is only a beta product, so we might see some change before the actual retail product hits. Hopefully they decide to go with the full 1GB x2 instead of 896MB x2.

Since when does beta hardware get released to review sites?

I dont think much is going to be changed, that said I dont think much needs to be changed.

This is likely true.

That said, I don't think it will be easy to find a situation where 896 MB of 448bit access RAM is a hindrance compared to 1GB of 512 bit access RAM.

Either way, that a lot of VRAM, and a lot of bandwidth. I don't think it's the limiting factor, so we agree WelshBloke.

 

[Keysplayr]

The card seems very well built. Heavy Metal. I'm finding most of my performance in line with the previews, except I'm not using i7 as most of the sites appear to be. I'll be doing a fair share of benching over the next few weeks. And I must say, this is pretty good for a very beta driver. Definitely has muscle.

 

[WelshBloke]

Originally posted by: keysplayr2003
The card seems very well built. Heavy Metal. I'm finding most of my performance in line with the previews, except I'm not using i7 as most of the sites appear to be. I'll be doing a fair share of benching over the next few weeks. And I must say, this is pretty good for a very beta driver. Definitely has muscle.

Its going to be heavy, theres double everything a normal card has.

What are temps like?

I'm quite tempted

 

[Keysplayr]

Originally posted by: WelshBloke

Originally posted by: keysplayr2003
The card seems very well built. Heavy Metal. I'm finding most of my performance in line with the previews, except I'm not using i7 as most of the sites appear to be. I'll be doing a fair share of benching over the next few weeks. And I must say, this is pretty good for a very beta driver. Definitely has muscle.

Its going to be heavy, theres double everything a normal card has.

What are temps like?

I'm quite tempted

Not quite. The PCB's, by themselves weigh almost nothing. Yet the card, with the elaborate fansink and outer metal casing just give it a "diesel" feel. Sorry, I can't comment on the temps just as the preview sites could not. It might not be indicitive of final retail shipping products. (Power management and such).
Though I can't see much being changed. However I will say, that I have to agree with Guru3d's assessment of temps and noise on page 3 of their preview.

 

[WelshBloke]

Originally posted by: keysplayr2003

Originally posted by: WelshBloke

Originally posted by: keysplayr2003
The card seems very well built. Heavy Metal. I'm finding most of my performance in line with the previews, except I'm not using i7 as most of the sites appear to be. I'll be doing a fair share of benching over the next few weeks. And I must say, this is pretty good for a very beta driver. Definitely has muscle.

Its going to be heavy, theres double everything a normal card has.

What are temps like?

I'm quite tempted

Not quite. The PCB's, by themselves weigh almost nothing. Yet the card, with the elaborate fansink and outer metal casing just give it a "diesel" feel. Sorry, I can't comment on the temps just as the preview sites could not. It might not be indicitive of final retail shipping products. (Power management and such).
Though I can't see much being changed. However I will say, that I have to agree with Guru3d's assessment of temps and noise on page 3 of their preview.

Well the heat sink has got to cover 2 sets of mem chips and 2 GPU's.

Anyway thats not important.

Damn you and your NDA's

I'll just have to wait for final reviews.

 

[chizow]

Originally posted by: keysplayr2003

Originally posted by: WelshBloke

Originally posted by: keysplayr2003
The card seems very well built. Heavy Metal. I'm finding most of my performance in line with the previews, except I'm not using i7 as most of the sites appear to be. I'll be doing a fair share of benching over the next few weeks. And I must say, this is pretty good for a very beta driver. Definitely has muscle.

Its going to be heavy, theres double everything a normal card has.

What are temps like?

I'm quite tempted

Not quite. The PCB's, by themselves weigh almost nothing. Yet the card, with the elaborate fansink and outer metal casing just give it a "diesel" feel. Sorry, I can't comment on the temps just as the preview sites could not. It might not be indicitive of final retail shipping products. (Power management and such).
Though I can't see much being changed. However I will say, that I have to agree with Guru3d's assessment of temps and noise on page 3 of their preview.

How about overclockability? I'd actually like to see the impact of RAM clocks as it does seem bandwidth is holding it back at 2560 with AA compared to the GTX 280 SLI and 4870X2. That and VRAM, although the difference in % is smaller for VRAM.

295 = 112,000MB/s
280 = 142,000MB/s

1024 to 896 = 12.5%
142k to 112k = 21%

Overclocking the RAM from 1000MHz to 1200MHz would be an easy way to get 20% more bandwidth on the 295 if it can handle it stably, although it still be a bit behind the GTX 280 with a full 512-bit bus.

 

[SickBeast]

Originally posted by: nRollo

Originally posted by: SickBeast
That stuff just looks like leaked marketing material to me. The graphs are skewed to make the card look twice as fast as the 4870x2, when in reality it's perhaps 20% faster.

Even if it is 20% faster, that's a disappointment to me.

Why is it a disappointment to you?

I'm enjoying my GTX295 very much, seems to kick ass at the games I've played on it.

If it's 20% faster than a 4870X2, launches with a $499 MSRP as suggested, I'd say everyone in the market for a single slot multi GPU should be happy.

ATi will have to lower prices, and buyers will have an option that gives them some very nice advantages in driver flexibility and vendor specific features.

It's disappointing because AMD was not even trying to produce a high-end GPU, and yet the 4870x2 is still within an earshot of a re-spin of NV's monolithic GPU.

It's great that they are the fastest and offering up some competition; I just would have expected way more from NV considering everything.

 

[Hauk]

Originally posted by: keysplayr2003
However I will say, that I have to agree with Guru3d's assessment of temps and noise on page 3 of their preview.

Hardocp's comments were quite revealing. The card at idle was very quiet, and it remained fairly quiet during gaming. Under load the card felt hot, but exaust air lacked forcefulness.

All this to me means fan speeds were low. Knowing these fans, I'm guessing it never broke 55%. If that was the case, there's a fan speed sweet spot to be had, where effective cooling, bearable noise levels, and decent oc's all come together. I'm guessing 70..

 

[shangshang]

Originally posted by: Timorous

Originally posted by: Wreckage

Originally posted by: Timorous
Bit-Tech have a preview of the 295 and in Fallout 3 @ 2560x1600 with 8xAA the 4870X2 is 52% faster than the 295.

Bit-Tech Preview

Considering how long the 4870X2 has been out I would have thought Nvidia would have been able to achieve a good 10-20% performance increase at these super high settings across the board. While the drivers may be a bit immature I do not see them gaining much performance between now and release.

The 9000GX2 stomped the 4870X2 in Crysis..... So?

There was no 9800GX2 in that preview

Also with regard to crysis, If you look at the Very High 2560x1600 the 4870X2 achieves a 25% higher min frame rate but a 10% lower average. When you drop the settings down to High and put on 2x AA the 4870X2 is just about playable but the 295 is no where near.

At the sort of settings you would expect to run these graphics cards at the 295 does not seem to provide the performance increase over the 4870X2 I would have expected.

I also expect that due to the 295's lower bandwidth and less memory the 4870X2 might well manage to last longer assuming games continue eating up more vram and bandwidth.

I suppose Nvidia specced it like this so that 280's in sli is faster so they can still sell their SLi chipsets.

It feels like the 3870X2 vs the 8800Ultra, nice part, a bit faster in general but too late and not as impressive as people were hoping for.

You don't understand. NV's main goal is to target the power gamers on 22" and 24" wide screen. That means resolutions between 1680x1080 and 1920x1200. It is within this resolution range that most people who will purchase this card will game at. At higher resolution, eg 2560x1600, that means it's a 30" panel. Most gamers do not use 30" for gaming because that is out of their budget. NV isn't going to lose much in the 30" LCD market.

What were you hoping for? $499 for the 295 is almost like getting two 280's for $250 for a piece. Furthermore, the presence of the 295 will drive down the price of all the other cards down the line. What's not to like?

Think.

 

[shangshang]

Ok I think people need to stop picking on the 2560 8xAA thing. The 295 has the processing muscle but like many suggested prolly run out of RAM at 2560 resolution. But let's get back to reality for a moment and ask ourselves how many blokes out there can afford a $1000+ 30" LCD??? A handful maybe? Please don't tell me your granny has one.

 

[cmdrdredd]

Originally posted by: shangshang
Ok I think people need to stop picking on the 2560 8xAA thing. The 295 has the processing muscle but like many suggested prolly run out of RAM at 2560 resolution. But let's get back to reality for a moment and ask ourselves how many blokes out there can afford a $1000+ 30" LCD??? A handful maybe? Please don't tell me your granny has one.

well...i think people expect too much most of the time.

 

[Wreckage]

Originally posted by: SickBeast

It's disappointing because AMD was not even trying to produce a high-end GPU, and yet the 4870x2 is still within an earshot of a re-spin of NV's monolithic GPU.

The 4870x2 is not a high end GPU, it's 2 GPUs.

 

[Cookie Monster]

Originally posted by: WelshBloke

Originally posted by: Cookie Monster
This is only a beta product, so we might see some change before the actual retail product hits. Hopefully they decide to go with the full 1GB x2 instead of 896MB x2.

Since when does beta hardware get released to review sites?

I dont think much is going to be changed, that said I dont think much needs to be changed.

You do realise that this card isnt released til january next year so nVIDIA still has time to change clock speeds or other specifications of this SKU. Not to mention that the GPU core its using is just an ES sample of the B3 revision.

Well IMHO I think the sudden plummet of performance at those high res/AA and AF scenarios should be more than just a concern, especially when the HD4870X2 overtakes it in performance which goes against the idea of reclaiming the performance crown.

Maybe the driver is at fault here but nVIDIA never had efficient memory management when compared to ATi cards.

 

[chizow]

Originally posted by: Cookie Monster
You do realise that this card isnt released til january next year so nVIDIA still has time to change clock speeds or other specifications of this SKU. Not to mention that the GPU core its using is just an ES sample of the B3 revision.

Well IMHO I think the sudden plummet of performance at those high res/AA and AF scenarios should be more than just a concern, especially when the HD4870X2 overtakes it in performance which goes against the idea of reclaiming the performance crown.

Maybe the driver is at fault here but nVIDIA never had efficient memory management when compared to ATi cards.

Well January of next year is like 2 weeks away. They may be ES but I'm pretty sure these specs are set in stone. Probably ramping for launch now and will be with AIC partners in the next week or so. Maybe they bump up memory clock a bit but its pretty clear they froze the core/shader so it wouldn't make 280/285 SLI configs obsolete.

And also with the ATI vs Nvidia memory management thing, thought we put this to rest months ago.....the 512MB 4870 looks very much like a 512MB part in all of those reviews where it completely tanks compared to the 1GB parts when it runs out of VRAM. The GTX 280 with 1GB in single and SLI doesn't seem to have any problems staying ahead of the 1GB 4870 either.

 

[ronnn]

I agree with the cookie. If in a few handpicked games it can't win at high res\aa, claiming the performance crown will be tough. Likely things will change when the vapour turns into actual product.

 

[Keysplayr]

Originally posted by: ronnn
I agree with the cookie. If in a few handpicked games it can't win at high res\aa, claiming the performance crown will be tough. Likely things will change when the vapour turns into actual product.

Quote from final page of Guru3d's preview:

"Also despite the fact we were limited to testing a handful of games, we internally of course did run the majority of benchmarks with other games already. And the performance widespread is consistent and the card worked with any game we threw at it."

I don't think it'll be tough at all.

 

[nRollo]

Originally posted by: Cookie Monster

Originally posted by: WelshBloke

Originally posted by: Cookie Monster
This is only a beta product, so we might see some change before the actual retail product hits. Hopefully they decide to go with the full 1GB x2 instead of 896MB x2.

Since when does beta hardware get released to review sites?

I dont think much is going to be changed, that said I dont think much needs to be changed.

You do realise that this card isnt released til january next year so nVIDIA still has time to change clock speeds or other specifications of this SKU. Not to mention that the GPU core its using is just an ES sample of the B3 revision.

Well IMHO I think the sudden plummet of performance at those high res/AA and AF scenarios should be more than just a concern, especially when the HD4870X2 overtakes it in performance which goes against the idea of reclaiming the performance crown.

Maybe the driver is at fault here but nVIDIA never had efficient memory management when compared to ATi cards.

I disagree with this Cookie.

For example, if you look at the bit-tech review the GTX295 does very well at the highest settings compared to the 4870X2.

At 25X16 8X AA, it loses Fallout3 but wins Left for Dead.

I'd also note that those of us with 25X16 monitors may care less about 8X AA than low res users. I'd rather have high res/low AA than low res/high AA anyday. High at both would be preferable obviously, but 8X AA is not a deal breaker for me.

 

[nosfe]

it's actually surprising that the gtx295 is so "weak", i mean, it's only purpose in life is to beat the 4870x2; nvidia already knew how the 4870x2 performs so it wasn't guesswork as to how strong to make it to take the performance crown in a convincing fashion. When i've heard that they'll make one i instantly thought that it'll win against the 4870x2 easily and not go back and forth in some resolutions/games. I expected (more or less) the same difference between them as it was in the last gen with the 9800gx2 and the 3870x2

 

[SickBeast]

Originally posted by: Wreckage

Originally posted by: SickBeast

It's disappointing because AMD was not even trying to produce a high-end GPU, and yet the 4870x2 is still within an earshot of a re-spin of NV's monolithic GPU.

The 4870x2 is not a high end GPU, it's 2 GPUs.

Yeah, two midrange GPUs, and they're still within an earshot of two of NV's massive, re-spun, and monolithic chips.

 

[Wreckage]

Originally posted by: SickBeast

Originally posted by: Wreckage

Originally posted by: SickBeast

It's disappointing because AMD was not even trying to produce a high-end GPU, and yet the 4870x2 is still within an earshot of a re-spin of NV's monolithic GPU.

The 4870x2 is not a high end GPU, it's 2 GPUs.

Yeah, two midrange GPUs, and they're still within an earshot of two of NV's massive, re-spun, and monolithic chips.

The 4870x2 is 20% or more behind. And it's a pair of 260's not 280's. :roll:

 

[Creig]

When you stop to think about it, that's 1.93 billion transistors for the 4870X2 vs 2.8 billion transistors for the GTX295. That's a difference of very nearly one entire RV770 GPU! :Q

 

[SickBeast]

Originally posted by: Creig
When you stop to think about it, that's 1.93 billion transistors for the 4870X2 vs 2.8 billion transistors for the GTX295. That's a difference of very nearly one entire RV770 GPU! :Q

In other words, AMD's GPUs are still the most efficient. 3 4870s in crossfire would beat out this new NV card and anything else they have to offer.