nVIDIA Finally Responds Back With GeForce GTX 295 [OUT NOW]

[Yoon]

With AMD's ATI Radeon HD 4800 series dominating GPU sales in the high-end GPU sector these days, nVIDIA's been really hurting in sales as of late. The ATI Radeon HD 4800 series offered both high end performance for the bang of the buck for the last five months. As a response to that, nVIDIA's dropped the prices of it's GeForce GTX 260/280 series cards, but by the time they did, it was already a little too late to stop AMD's steam-rolling engines.

Things were made even worse for nVIDIA when the Radeon HD 4870 X2 came out, as not only were they losing sales to AMD, but lost the top-performance GPU crown as well. For nVIDIA, having the top-performing graphics card with their name on it, no matter the cost, is an important pride/ego issue for them. It's that drive to be on top that led nVIDIA to be successful when they challenged 3Dfx's dominance back in the late 90s, as well as the competition against ATI during this decade. While AMD's been sitting comfortably on the top GPU performance charts with their Radeon 4870 X2, that's all about to change, as nVIDIA will be introducing their next top of the line card, the GeForce GTX 295, next month.

Although the nVIDIA won't be launching the GeForce GTX 295 until next month, they have shipped out preview samples to several review sites, such as Guru3D and Anandtech. The specifications for the GeForce GTX 295 have been revealed:

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From AnandTech. The GeForce GTX 295

GeForce GTX 295
Die(s) Size: 55nm
Stream Processors: 240 x 2
Core Clock: 576
Shader Clock: 1242
Memory Clock: 999
Memory: 1792 MB
Memory Bandwidth: 448-bit x 2

Like the Radeon HD 4870 X2, the GeForce GTX 295 is a "dual-GPU on a single card" solution (SLi on a single card). Unlike the Radeon HD 4870 X2, the GeForce GTX 295 uses a covered sandwich form factor, similar to nVIDIA's previous dual-GPU card, the GeForce 9800 GX2.

The reason why it took so long for nVIDIA to respond back against the Radeon HD 4870 X2 is that when the GeForce GTX series originally launched back in the summer, the GTX cards were already extremely hot and consumed quite a bit of power, due to the GTX cores still being 65nm in size. As a result, they couldn't do a dual-GPU GTX card at that time. However, nVIDIA has now been able to shrink the GTX cores to 55nm, which have reduced heat emission and power consumption levels enough that they can now do a dual-GPU GTX card.

Guru3D has posted some preview benchmarks of the GeForce GTX 295, which you can check out at their website: Guru3D - GeForce GTX 295 preview. They tested the GeForce GTX 295 against the Radeon HD 4870 X2 in several games, which included Far Cry 2, Fallout 3, Crysis: Warhead, Dead Space, Call of Duty: World at War, Brother in Arms, and Left 4 Dead.

In nearly all of the games that they tested, the GeForce GTX 295 was roughly about 5 - 25% faster against the Radeon HD 4870 X2. In Dead Space alone, the GeForce GTX 295 was nearly 100% faster than the 4870 X2! Although the card is still just a preview card using early drivers, the performance increase over the 4870 X2 (a card that was already a monster), is incredible. nVIDIA is apparently pricing this card at $499 USD, which is cheaper than what the Radeon HD 4870 X2 is currently going for (~$549).

With the release of this card, along with the rumored single GPU refresh releases of the GTX 280/260 coming out very shortly, competition between nVIDIA and AMD will be heating up again and going to a whole new level.

[Yoon]

UPDATE (1/09/2009):

nVIDIA formally launched the GeForce GTX 295 today. As expected and seen from earlier previews, the GTX 295 floors all single graphics card solutions, including the previous GPU king, the AMD Radeon HD 4870 X2. Reviews and benchmarks can be found at the following sites:

Neo Seeker: http://www.neoseeker.com/Articles/Hardw ... bfggtx295/
[H]ardOCP: http://enthusiast.hardocp.com/article.h ... VzaWFzdA==
bit-tech: http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2009/0 ... i-review/1
FiringSquad: http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/evg ... rformance/
HEXUS: http://www.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=16737
Guru3D: http://www.guru3d.com/article/geforce-g ... eview-bfg/
PC Perspective: http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=655
TweakTown: http://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/1705/g ... index.html

As stated earlier, the GTX 295 is faster than the HD 4870 X2, but is at most 5-25% faster in most games (except for Dead Space, where the GTX 295 is nearly 100% faster). The GTX 295 also consumes less power as well. It is interesting to note that the GTX 295's performance starts to take a dive in higher resolutions (particularly at 2560 x 1600), probably because memory texture sizes at such a resolution is taking a toll on the GTX 295's slightly smaller RAM amount (896 MB x 2). nVIDIA is listing the GTX 295 for $499 USD.

In response, AMD is dropping prices on the HD 4870 X2; you can find some HD 4870 X2 for around $449 USD. For those that already have a HD 4870 X2, I'd suggest skipping the GTX 295, since the next "big" leap for both AMD and nVIDIA will occur later this spring and summer, and nearly all games can be played on the HD 4870 X2 with the highest resolutions and max settings.