GTX285 vs. GTX295

[Criss-AC]

Hi, I read some reviews about how good these two cards performed (GTX285 and 295) in some testing environment, the same applications, games, whatever, and for some reason, the 285 outscored the 295. Always. Now, the reason I am posting this is that I can not understand why the 295 it is sold more expensive than the 285, considering it performs not as good as 285? Is it really, really better?

My own "discovery": I've benchmarked my computer which has a GTX285 in it in 3DMark Vantage and it scored way above 16,500 points without any overclocking. And if I go to nVidia site and try the performance advisor (you know, to see how much the performance will be increased if I purchase the GTX295, it tells me this (I copy and paste from the page: "Your current PC's 3DMark score: 16,400. Your PC's 3DMark score with NVIDIA GeForce GTX 295: 15,000."

If I just follow what they say, they literaly admit that the GTX285 is better than the GTX295! So is a GTX295 better than the GTX285, or this is only the general impression? (you know, because it is $100 more expensive and it has more RAM on it?). And I haven't found any GTX285 vs. GTX295 review where the 295 outscores the 285!

PS: I wrote this post one month ago on the nVidia forum and the guy who answered did not even read it thoroughly -- nor understand it -- and replied only for the sake of achieving a great posting score. Hope somebody will be able to give a straight answer?

 

[ahnilated]

Did you look on Toms for any of the reviews?

http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/gaming-graphics-cards-charts-2009-high-quality/benchmarks,58.html

This would be a good place to look.

 

[Criss-AC]

Did you look on Toms for any of the reviews?

http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/gaming-graphics-cards-charts-2009-high-quality/benchmarks,58.html

This would be a good place to look.

No, not really -- I just posted the message. Thanks for the link though -- quite useful.

 

[brett1042002]

The GTX 295 is basically 2 GTX 260's "sandwiched" together in SLI.... applications/games that utilize SLI will benefit from this configuration. So, i'm not sure if the games/synthetics/benchmarks you are seeing are taking advantage of SLI in the 295 or not. If they are not, it is obviously going to use only one GPU and you will not get the full performance out of a 295.

The GTX 285 is a SINGLE, more powerful GPU.

Not every piece of software supports/utilizes SLI. It is becoming more and more popular though.

EDIT: GTX 295 > GTX 285 when SLI is properly enabled and supported by the software.

 

[blackhawk1928]

^yup, if the application or software in use is programmed to properly utilize the SLI in a GTX295, then the 295 will ofcourse be superior to the GTX285, however if the program does not then the 285 will defeat the 295 since in a 295 there are two gtx260's and a 285>260 therefore the software determines the winner in most cases. And the GTX285 is the most powerful Single GPU currently in the Nvidia line. A 295 is basically a 2in1, not a single card.

 

[Criss-AC]

This is very good information, thanks! What about the two different GTX285 that are out there, the one with 1 GB of memory on it and the other one with 2 GB. Should I try to sell my 1 GB GTX285 which is already overclocked (it is the XFX Black Edition purchased from TigerDirect) in order to get the 2 GB version (manufactured by eVGA and sold on NewEgg)?

...or perhaps I should just start a new topic..?

 

[obsidian86]

actually the 295 is 275x2

 

[obsidian86]

the 2 gig is only really for high resoluion tom's has a review on the 2 gig 285 gigabyte version

 

[brett1042002]

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gv-n285oc-2gi-gtx-285,2380-4.html

^ Here is the article discussing the difference between 1gb vs 2gb GTX 285 cards. There is little, if any, difference in performance even at high res. It's a marketing gimmick, imo.

 

[blackhawk1928]

Well the extra gig helps a bit when you have AA on high resolutions, otherwise the difference between the cards is the price and nothing else really
-Obsidian: I have heard many people saying a 295 is 275x2 and others saying a 260x2 and i cant quite confirm which one is right. But my point still remains that a 285>275 or 260.

 

[obsidian86]

if you want the best consumer friendly gpu look up on the asus 285x2 gtx its like the 295 but using 2 285 cores an take a 295 specs an devide everything in half you wil come up too the 275 specs

 

[Criss-AC]

Well the extra gig helps a bit when you have AA on high resolutions, otherwise the difference between the cards is the price and nothing else really
-Obsidian: I have heard many people saying a 295 is 275x2 and others saying a 260x2 and i cant quite confirm which one is right. But my point still remains that a 285>275 or 260.

I would say that the 295 is a 2x260 and I have found this information somewhere on nVidia site. I tried to find it now to back up what I just said, but I've failed. However, I got to understand that the GTX285 is the BEST single GPU card from nVidia right now, and also that there is not too much difference between the 1 GB and 2 GB version. The test reviews are very much alike.

 

[obsidian86]

gtx 295


•480 stream processors (240 per core)
•576 MHz core clock
•1242 MHz shader clock
•1000 / 2000 MHz GDDR3 memory clock
•1792MB total frame buffer (896MB per core)
•448-bit memory interface per core
•56 total ROPs (28 per core)
•160 texture units (80 per core)

gtx 275
Processor Cores 240
Graphics Clock (MHz) 633
Processor Clock (MHz) 1404
Texture Fill Rate (billion/sec) 50.6
Memory Specs:
Memory Clock (MHz) 1134
Standard Memory Config 896MB
Memory Interface Width 448-bit GDDR3
Memory Bandwidth (GB/sec) 127.0

gtx 260 216

Bus Type: PCI-E 2.0
Performance: Standard
GPU Clock MHz: 576 MHz
Shader Clock (MHz): 1242 MHz
Stream Processors: 192 (216 in the Core 216 version)
Texture Fill Rate (billion/sec): 36.9 (41.5 Billion/sec in the Core 16 Version)
Pixels per clock (peak): 96
Memory Interface Bus (Bit): 448
Memory Type: DDR3
Memory Size (MB): 896 MB
Memory Clock (MHz): 1998 MHz

 

[obsidian86]

the stream processors should answer the question

 

[meewog]

Well the extra gig helps a bit when you have AA on high resolutions, otherwise the difference between the cards is the price and nothing else really
-Obsidian: I have heard many people saying a 295 is 275x2 and others saying a 260x2 and i cant quite confirm which one is right. But my point still remains that a 285>275 or 260.

I've read its 2 gtx 275 underclocked running at gtx260 speeds.

 

[Criss-AC]

the stream processors should answer the question

Yes it does, thank you. But this raises another question. I guess I would just have to start a new thread about it. If you SLI, you should be able to use 2x of the stream processors, 2x of the memory, 2x of everything. But, what if the application does not recognize the SLI configuration. See the other thread, I wrote there.

 

[freezed1]

Hi, gtx 295 is a actually 2x gtx 275, look at the clocks and specs and will will see. as for performance gtx 295 > gtx 285 @ higher resolutions. I have both cards and the 295 will out perform gtx 285; but the gtx 285 is the single fastest card available.

 

[leon2006]

Below are bench mark results from Anand Tech...To summarize GTX-285 SLI in most cases is better than a GTX-295. Read the results and analysis...

SLI & Crossfire are mostly supported by new games. It should not be a big concern considering investment in these cards are geared towards high end games.

Bench mark for 2 GPUS (Crysis Warhead...)
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3517&p=8

Bench mark for 2 GPUS
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3517

Bench mark for 3 GPUS
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3518

The article presents the other merits of multi-gpu setup.