Test Settings

Good job. (but none of these cards are in my budget)

I’m looking at page 9 on the power usage charts – I have to say the GTX295 is very impressive it’s power consumption isn’t that much greater then the GTX280. And what’s very impressive is it uses 40% less power in SLI then the HD4870X2 does in Crossfire., meaning if I already owned a pretty decent PSU say around 700-800 watt’s I wouldn’t have to worry about getting it replaced if I were planning on SLIing the GTX295.

I would have liked to have seen some temperatures in there somewhere as well. With top end cards becoming hotter and hotter (at least with ATI) I wonder if cheaper cases are able to cope with the temperatures these components generate.

BTW any chance of doing some sextuple SLI GTX295 on the old Intel Skulltrail?

Not a chance: The GTX 295 only has one SLI bridge connector. NVIDIA designs its products intentionally to only support a maximum of four graphics cores, and in doing so eliminates the need to make its drivers support more.

I'd like to see a board that takes up 3 slots, and use both the 1st and the 3rd slot's pcie connectors to power 4 gpu's on one board. Perhaps with the second pcie being optional - so in case of not fitting the card at all, one could fit it with reduced bandwidth. That way they'd have a basis to make some proper cooling. Perhaps a small h2o system, or a peltier coupled with some propler fan and heatsink.

ie. a big 3x3x9" box resting on the expansion slots, dumping warm air outside.

edit: more like 2x3x9" actually

and propler=proper

"...Radeon HD 4870 X2 knocked the GeForce GTX 280 from its performance
thrown." --> "throne"? or am I just misunderstanding the sentence?

So the conclusion should read:
Congrats on quad-sli, though, for anything that doesnt already get 100+ fps with a single GX2, you're welcome to throw in a second and get at most a 10-20% increase, unless of course you want to get an increase to a game that doesnt already have 100 FPS (crysis), in which case you're screwed - dont even bother with it.

Why test with AA and AF turned on with such high end cards? Anyone who pays +$400 * X wouldn't be playing any game with AA AF turned off or with low res. display. (If I'd pay $800 for graphics cards, I'd have of course had a display with no less than 1920x1200 resolution. Not even 1680x1050)
And I'm a little disappointed with the scaling of all solutions. They still don't scale well.

The performance per watt char is exactly what I wanted to see (it would be even better with some temps listed though). Thanks THG, This will help things along nicely.

duzcizgi, don't forget about the real hardcore players (those who play tournaments for example), who prefer to play with the lower graphics settings and ensure > 100 FPS.

Very informitive. I have one request going forward; when the testing teams do a 3Dmark Vantage test would they please include the standard 3Dmark06 benchmark results? Most users won't/don't use the vantage paid test. Vantage results have a different scoring and I and probably others can't interept what those scores mean for systems tested with just the 3Dmark06 standard tests.

Its kinda funny that the 3 way 280 GTX is still on top of the food chain, although it is more expensive

I still think that the best invested videocard to date would be who ever bought a 8800 GTX or Ultra considering they can still max out games and do well in high resolutions even copared to the 9800 GTXs, and alot of 512 meg card.

I mean 2006-2009 absolutely worth the 600$ in my opinion if you want to get by in gaming

Bah, these new cards are made just to take back the top spot from ATI. BAH! I want a GT300!

Correct - if we ignore that many g80 chips have been killed by heat since then, making it a bit less likely to make do with just one card in 3 years.

ps. released november 2006 - so basicly it's "just been" 2007 and 2008 without upgrades.

The GTX285 tri sli does a little better.

haha nvidia takes the crown!!...but truly ATI will come back and take the crown, then nvidia, then ATI and so forth and so-on... but its good to see the green giant back on top. i cant wait to see the new gt300 series cards!... i have to agree L1qu1d i have a 8800gt...dude it kicks some serious bootay!!! and heat was definetly the killer for the g80 series but using riva tuner i have been able up the fan speed to 80% then overclock my 8800gt and ROCKS!!!

Very very nice review. I have been an advocate for 1.5GB+ RAM on video card ever since I got GTA4. It seems like ATI/Nvidia haven’t realize the need for larger buffer on $400+ cards.

Either way, I just bought a 4850 1GB OC to replace a fairly new G92b 9800GT as it only cost me about $20 to upgrade. I think the 512MB RAM on 9800GT is bottlenecking a few game at 1920*1200. Hopefully the 50% faster 4850 will solve that problem.

i don't know, i'm getting pretty tired of sli... it should have died with the monster 3dII. I for one was releaved that the geforce series came out, a single card with enough power to play all the games you wanted on high settings, but now you have to spend a lot of cash to get the best graphics. Focus on a single card that can handle everything damnit!

Yeah but I mean its just an Overclocked 280 GTX other than that you have heat and power consumption. I really don't care about those since I have a 1000 watt corsair and really doesn't affect me much. (plus I don't pay for electricity).

I mean I got my 280s to 712 core clock stable soo really it wouldn't be worth the extra 20$ or so for these cards (if I do the bfg up)