GeForce GTX 295 Performance: Previewed

[cangelini]

[citation][nom]mr.x[/nom]I wonder how much power this thing will use.[/citation]

If you care to do a little math, yyou can get a sense for total system power on the second page. It actually does pretty well in that regard.

 

[Fadamor]

[citation][nom]enyceckk101[/nom]wow , this card doesn't consumption any power when u playing far cry 2 ? Im getting this card ![/citation]Hehe you noticed that too? I'm sorry, Tom's, but I'm not believing a word you say about the power consumption of the GX295 until you provide a graph of the 295's power consumption that is realistic. Labeling a spot on the graph and then not putting any values there does not count.

 

[mbbs20]

the 4870 x2 are selling for around $460- $470 on newegg...why doesnt it reflect correctly in this article because it says 4870 x2 ~$500

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814103066

 

[cleeve]

[citation][nom]mbbs20[/nom]the 4870 x2 are selling for around $460- $470 on newegg...why doesnt it reflect correctly in this article because it says 4870 x2 ~$500http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6814103066[/citation]

That's after rebates dood. We try not to count rebates. Rebates are a royal pain in the arse.

 

[cangelini]

[citation][nom]Fadamor[/nom]Hehe you noticed that too? I'm sorry, Tom's, but I'm not believing a word you say about the power consumption of the GX295 until you provide a graph of the 295's power consumption that is realistic. Labeling a spot on the graph and then not putting any values there does not count.[/citation]

As mentioned more than once in the story, one of the conditions for previewing the card was not to chart its power. In the paragraph right below, however, you can get a sense for where the power is, pretty much exactly.

 

[sojrner]

[citation][nom]sparky2010[/nom]True, but i'm comparing the 4870 to its big brother, the X2.. there are games where the difference is almost nothing.. so basically multi-gpu optimization for some games is, well, there isn't any... I know that the GTX 280 is superior to the 4870.. but i think that it's a shame that ATI could get better numbers from their cards but instead refuse to put the effort.. instead of their 6 month old card being already 100%, nVidia has a card that's not even released yet, on a new die, that has beta drivers that seem to function alot better than ATI's, that's all.. Yet we receive drivers from ATI every now and then that "unlock" more performance.. i don't know, it's like buying a car and the dealer telling you "Hey! Come back after 10k and i'll give you 20 more HP! XD" lol..[/citation]

wow, talk about erroneous logic. When the 4870x2 engineering samples were making rounds you saw similar previews that revealed similar performance gains. No different. Both companies gain improvements w/ new driver releases as they optimize for certain things that were not able to be finished by release time. BOTH companies do this. ATI just happens to release a full driver every month while Nv sends out beta drivers. Same thing though in principal.

Not sure what you mean by "6 month old card being already 100%"... rethink your logic man. Even your car analogy... most cars can be retuned after purchase and gain 20 Hp easily enough through many methods. Were they not at 100% then at time of sale?

And for the good of all things holy and true... lay off the "ATI makes bad drivers" drumbeat. Both companies are pretty solid on drivers with the occasional bug/conflict. End of story.

 

[sojrner]

[citation][nom]ubergeetar[/nom]I think the INQUIRER did an article about NVIDIA and ATI's roadmaps. NVIDIA is slated to release 45nm GDDR5 Cards Q4 2009. Something like that. NVIDIA's advantage to GDDR3 is that they have a much broader bandwidth than GDDR5 right now (512bit in the GTX280 vs. 256bit in the 4870). This makes their memory transfer rate about equal, I'm not quite sure, but I know that while GDDR5 has this bitrate, it cannot be very much faster that 512-bit GDDR3. Just like how you see the low latency DDR2 sticks still performing similarly to the high-lat DDR3 sticks.NVIDIA simply doesn't need to go GDDR5 just yet. They will with their next die shrinks when the brand new cores (GT212 and 218?) come out. As far as I remember.[/citation]

yes, it is a simple case of wide/slower throughput vs narrow/faster. With the cost of the chip on the Nv cards, the added cost of GDDR5 functionality would blow their profit margin. (and like Cleeve mentioned, it was a design decision from the start on the g200) ATI could absorb that cost with the relatively cheap cost of production for everything else... and it also was designed w/ needing that speed to compensate for the narrower bus.

Speculation: I seriously doubt it is a 1:1 tradeoff, but ATI has compensated well and is holding their own with a supposedly inferior bandwidth spec to perform where they need to.

 

[chaohsiangchen]

[citation][nom]cangelini[/nom]As mentioned more than once in the story, one of the conditions for previewing the card was not to chart its power. In the paragraph right below, however, you can get a sense for where the power is, pretty much exactly.[/citation]

Just a constructive suggestion: put some label on the power consumption graph such as:

"Under NVIDIA NDA"
"To Be Determined"
"Not Final Product"
"NDA, Refer to the article"

 

[sojrner]

...or, just READ it before jumping to conclusions. lol

 

[kelfen]

I smell ATI will be doing a die strink too

 

[rocky1234]

Wow guys great review I found it very well thought out. Thanks for the hard work.

 

[hannibal]

Nice to see that Nvidia 55nm transfer is going on as planned.
I am not woried, if and when the 295 comes out, that it will be the fastest card around. It's just a good thing. I supose we see some ATI prize cuts just around the release date or soon after
It's the market. When the 4870x2 is the fastest single card solution there is not big need for reducing the price. After the release of 295 the need to do it is imminent. So more good cards to increase the competition. At this moment 4870x2 is a little bit owerpriced compared to normal 4870. IMHO.
And ofcource ATI is planning their own shrink version too, it's just when they can do it. 40nm is unproven technology at this moment, so with bad luck it can take some time. With good luck they can kick Nvidias *** for a time a little bit longer (at least until GT300 comes out).

As people has mentioned new drivers does not save the 4870x2. The 295 will be faster, but as allso has been said, I don't think that ATI is worried about it. They know that Nvidia will do it sooner or later. For them the most important thing is that 4870 is relative cheap to produce, so they can be competative until their own new release.

 

[hellwig]

Lets see, at release the GTX 280 was what, $650? ATI released the 4870 at $300 (or was it $400) and completely decimated Nvidia's sales that month, forcing Nvidia to drop prices down by almost 40%. That's huge. To target their pricepoint at the 4870X2's current $500 mark is definately a gamble, they can't be making much money at that price. Whats to say ATI couldn't drop the 4870X2 price 10% to $450, and maintain the price/performance lead its R700 series has held for so many months?

Nvidia loves that "worlds fastest single card" feather in their cap, but they might be sacrificing too much to get it back this time. I guess we'll have to wait and see what the final price and performance specs are.

 

[geok1ng]

a good idea for a card and a valid price point, will certainly be an option for those who STILL havnt got a 4870X2...i believe it is coming late to the market, should be a pre-Xmas release.
As for the performance crown... this beast can NOT be watercooled and even aircooled aftermarket solutions are almost impossible, so i dont believe that it can really face a 4870X2 with a fullcover waterblock, which is a solution for silent concious and OC oriented users.

 

[Annisman]

I agree, ATI definately has the ability to slash X2 prices when this monster comes out to compete.

 

[cangelini]

[citation][nom]rocky1234[/nom]Wow guys great review I found it very well thought out. Thanks for the hard work.[/citation]

Thanks Rocky

 

[bfstev]

Things are getting interesting again I see.

I think that AMD might cut their price to compete better. As in match the price to its performance wich is lower than the 295. Though that may depend on how they do with thier amd and foundry split and wether they can justify the price reduction to their investors.

 

[sojrner]

or... we could wait and see how a non-engineering sample w/ legit drivers does and we may find that it depends on which game you play to determine the "fastest". Nv hand picked these test apps. In crysis it was twitchy and I'd bet there may be other games where any lead is nullified or reversed. (we have seen this happen in past generations)

It may result that there is no price slashing. If the performance is very close they both may keep those price points rather than "forfeit" the performance crown that is signified by that higher price...

 

[cleeve]

Maybe. But based on just thethe specs I'm inclinded to believe the 295 will be a stronger performer all-round, and I'll be surprised if the 4870 X2 doesn't drop down $50 or so. Which would be nice.

And I'll be interested in seeing two 295's in SLI vs two 4870 X2s in Xfire, regardless.

 

[yonef]

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2008/12/18/first-look-nvidia-geforce-gtx-295-1792mb/5

Where is the truth !?

 

[Guest]

w/e

My normal 4870 512 plays things fine for me at 1920 by 1200

I'm sticking to this until atleast the real next gen cards are out


meaning at least gddr5 for nvidia

and for ATI a Crossfire card that actually does crossfire on the card and not through the software...

I mean really... they promised that for the 4870 x2... but it didn't happen so w/e

 

[cleeve]

[citation][nom]yonef[/nom]http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2 [...] 5-1792mb/5Where is the truth !?[/citation]

Both places...

Check the setups.: Diffrent quality settings and diffrent resolutions in both reviews.

 

[Swixi]

[citation][nom]NarwhaleAu[/nom]Your conclusion was, at best, poor.Nvidia's "fastest single card" is two 280s on a single PCB, selling at the price point that ATI is selling their 4870x2 at right now?It is a lot cheaper to produce the 4870 GPU, so I am sure you will see ATI cut their price down by at least $50, and maybe $100. Nvidia will then have the same problem - a monolithic GPU that is expensive to produce and not really any faster than the 4870.[/citation]

You, my friend, need to rethink your evaluation. Seriously, a $100 drop? Do you realize what that means in proportionality to the other cards on the market. I'll let you sit back and think.

 

[Swixi]

[citation][nom]yonef[/nom]http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2 [...] 5-1792mb/5Where is the truth !?[/citation]

That is only in Far Cry 2 for some strange reason. Check the other game benchmarks on that site; don't just link one game, or you create an unfavorable bias equivalent to that of an ATI fanboy (most of the people on here).

 

[Guest]

nope, i'm not at least, I just get the best card for the money for my resolution... thats how it SHOULD be... but thats how its not