gtx 285 vs 295

[Samael]

One of the major things to consider is your monitor size.

Patch789 those are impressive. On Crysis I can go up to 4XAA and everything very high at 1920x1200 adn get 35-40fps. As for the Microstutter, I think its a quad SLI problem not a 295 problem.

[Silvgearx]

GTX 295 would be a good choice if you have a crossfire board or a single slot pcie.

If you have a SLI board, and noise + heat not a big factor, then i think its best to get Dual GTX 260 216 or even better a dual GTX 285

Dual GTX 260 for best bang for bucks, and GTX 285 SLI for best performance , at the cost of extra $$$

I too am a ATI fanboy. Must resist those Radeon 4870 1gb for $244

[rjbarker]

I can vouch that a 2 x GTX 280 on 1920 x 1200 Res is great...285 SLI would definitely be my choice..handsdown!!

[Dwayne]

I have a GTX 295 and a 24" monitor. I game at 1920 x 1080 and I am very happy with the card so far. I have oc'ed it to 590 for now (3D performance mode) and it is very stable. I have not touched the RAM yet. I am planning to bump the GPUs to 600 and see how stable that is. The card runs a 2D mode, lowest power, lowest clocks; a 3D low power mode and a full out 3D high power mode. I am browsing the net and doing email the GPU runs at 300/100 but when the games start the board ramps up to 590/1000. As someone pointed out, the card is internal SLI'ed and it does seem to work fine for the most part. I am having problems with Empire, Total War, but there should be a patch from CA soon and I expect that NVidia will work on the drivers to steady this up. Far Cry 2 looks awesome with all items cranked to the max here is a sample of the benchmark I ran:

Settings: Demo(Ranch Small), 1920x1080 (60Hz), D3D10, Fixed Time Step(No), Disable Artificial Intelligence(No), Full Screen, Anti-Aliasing(4x), VSync(No), Overall Quality(Custom), Vegetation(Very High), Shading(Ultra High), Terrain(Very High), Geometry(Ultra High), Post FX(High), Texture(Ultra High), Shadow(Ultra High), Ambient(High), Hdr(Yes), Bloom(Yes), Fire(Very High), Physics(Very High), RealTrees(Very High)

• Average Framerate: 57.79
• Max. Framerate: 93.67
• Min. Framerate: 39.48

I didn't clean up every process in the background, so I may be able to squeeze some more frames out with tweaks, but overall I am really happy with the card.

[rjbarker]

I have a GTX 295 and a 24" monitor. I game at 1920 x 1080 and I am very happy with the card so far. I have oc'ed it to 590 for now (3D performance mode) and it is very stable. I have not touched the RAM yet. I am planning to bump the GPUs to 600 and see how stable that is. The card runs a 2D mode, lowest power, lowest clocks; a 3D low power mode and a full out 3D high power mode. I am browsing the net and doing email the GPU runs at 300/100 but when the games start the board ramps up to 590/1000. As someone pointed out, the card is internal SLI'ed and it does seem to work fine for the most part. I am having problems with Empire, Total War, but there should be a patch from CA soon and I expect that NVidia will work on the drivers to steady this up. Far Cry 2 looks awesome with all items cranked to the max here is a sample of the benchmark I ran:

Settings: Demo(Ranch Small), 1920x1080 (60Hz), D3D10, Fixed Time Step(No), Disable Artificial Intelligence(No), Full Screen, Anti-Aliasing(4x), VSync(No), Overall Quality(Custom), Vegetation(Very High), Shading(Ultra High), Terrain(Very High), Geometry(Ultra High), Post FX(High), Texture(Ultra High), Shadow(Ultra High), Ambient(High), Hdr(Yes), Bloom(Yes), Fire(Very High), Physics(Very High), RealTrees(Very High)

• Average Framerate: 57.79
• Max. Framerate: 93.67
• Min. Framerate: 39.48

The 3D and 2D Stepping mode is standard and all GTX 260 / 280 / 285 and 295's as well as the 9xxx Series Cards....nothing new.
Those Benchmarks seem a little low for a 295...here's a sample of my testing and why I would go 2 x 280 / 285 over a 295 in a heartbeat, considering now 2 280's can be purchased for almost the same cost as a single 295:
E8400 @ 3.8 Ghz 4GB RAM @ 1 Ghz 4-4-4-15 2T Single GTX 280 XP 32 Bit DX9
Ranch Short 3 runs All Ultra No AA 1920 x 1200 - 49 FPS

E8400 @ 3.8 Ghz 4GB RAM @ 1 Ghz 4-4-4-15 2T 2 x GTX 280 SLI XP 32 Bit DX9
Ranch Short 3 runs All Ultra No AA 1920 x 1200 - 73 FPS

I7 920 @ 3.8 Ghz 6GB RAM @ 1.6 Ghz 8-8-8-24 1T 2 x GTX 280 SLI Vista 64 Bit DX10
Ranch Short 3 runs All Ultra No AA 1920 x 1200 - 101 FPS

E8400 @ 3.8 Ghz 4GB RAM @ 1 Ghz 4-4-4-15 2T 2 x GTX 280 SLI XP 32 Bit DX9
Ranch Short 3 runs All Ultra 4x AA 1920 x 1200 - 70.5 FPS

In all fairness your Benchmarks were run with 4X AA, try some Benchies with no AA and compare to my numbers below. It is your Minimum Frames that jump out at me and seem to really take a hit..that could very well be a result of thse dual PCB Cards.

[Dwayne]

While my numbers are not up to the standard of many reviews I think my real world example shows the card is more than up to the task, as a single slot solution. I don't think that I could get exactly the same number of running processes, etc, as someone else to be able to compare but it is close enough. There are a lot of different solutions out there and I don't think that one size fits all.

Do you use nHancer or just the NVidia control panel and change the settings there? I turned off nHancer, opened up the NVidia control panel to set Far Cry 2 to application settings and didn't really get a difference in my test, DX10 or DX9.

Anyway, with the prices of video cards changing daily it is a crap shoot when you buy something! In the end, we make a decision, swear a little a few weeks later when the prices change, and go on not worrying too much. I have an old x800 XT AGP card, $600 in its day, and now just another spare part sitting in my basement :) life is too short to worry about the price of technology and the changes daily in price.

[rjbarker]

nVidia Control Panel - all settings to "Application Controlled"
I strictly run DX 10 on my Primary Rig as it is vista 64 Bit
Secondary Rig runs DX9 XP 32 Bit - tis rig has a 9800 GTX+ of which too also pumps out incredible FPS considering that card was only $180
Do not use nor have I even seen nHancer, strictly use Precision for al Profiles, overclocking and fan settings.

Dual GTX 260 for best bang for bucks, and GTX 285 SLI for best performance

Best "bang for buck" right now would be 2 x GTX 280 BFG's @ $329 each.
The only thing they won't out-perform are 2 x GTX 295 Quad SLI or 2 x GTX 285's....

[Eagle Eye]

Hasn't the 295 already been discontinued?

[rjbarker]

Hasn't the 295 already been discontinued?

Not to my knowledge EE...as a mater of fact I just saw on the Evga Web Site they now have a "Red edition", guess to match the red color on the new X58 Classified Boards..however, once the new 3 Series are launched they'll be gone in a blink.

[Eagle Eye]

Well you're right, but than again its really only just a few more months and it will meet the same demise much like the 9800GX2. At a minimum it is a much better ver. this time around a little better value and performance.

Getting back on topic I much rather stick with a card that doesn't require SLI profiles to get most of its performance, you'd be better off sticking with a single 285 imo or if you can find a cheap GTX280 that would be good alternative.

Regards,

EE