Nvidia GeForce GTX 275 Preview: A Well-Timed Retaliatory Strike?

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Benchmark Results: Stalker: Clear Sky

Nvidia’s GeForce GTX 275 has an advantage in Stalker: Clear Sky versus the Radeon HD 4890. Worth noting, however, is the game’s support for DirectX 10.1, which ATI is able to utilize, while Nvidia does not. In this comparison, all cards are set to use DirectX 10.0 to keep performance comparison consistent.

With anti-aliasing enabled, the GeForce GTX 275 bests ATI’s Radeon HD 4890 at 1680x1050, ties it at 1920x1200, and gets trumped at 2560x1600. This performance slide seems related to frame buffer, as the GeForce GTX 260 Core 216 also slips in at seven frames per second, while even ATI’s Radeon HD 4870 1 GB scores close to 12. At that speed, performance is pretty much unplayable, though.

Chris Angelini
Chris Angelini
Chris Angelini is an Editor Emeritus at Tom's Hardware US. He edits hardware reviews and covers high-profile CPU and GPU launches.
51 Comments Comment from the forums
  • privardo
    This would be my good price, good performance and the right time upgrade from 8800 GTS 512mb. Thanks for this awesome review!
    Reply
  • eklipz330
    i think putting the competitors next to eachother would have been easier on the eyes... putting 4870x2 gtx295 next to eachother, 4890 gtx275 next to eachother...you catch my drift
    Reply
  • cangelini
    Yeah, but with each resolution its own color, after looking at it both ways, it was easier to put each product family in descending order--hopefully it makes just as much sense that way!
    Reply
  • eklipz330
    srry for dp butkudos to nvidia for stepping up their game in the last second that had nothing to do with renaming cards. an attractive card at an attractive price.

    it'd be smart for ati to not release the 4890x2. wouldn't make any sense, like my grammar skills. hopefully drivers can catch up and do some damage, id doubt they woudl do anything dramatic though.
    Reply
  • megamanx00
    Too bad they didn't overclock the 4890 and the 275 for the review. I would have liked to have seen how the two cards compared overclocked. The heat and power dissipation on the 4890 would probably be a little scary though :D.
    Reply
  • megamanx00
    I think the big thing for nVidia now is, who's going to spend money on a 285 with the 275 so close?
    Reply
  • cangelini
    megamanx00Too bad they didn't overclock the 4890 and the 275 for the review. I would have liked to have seen how the two cards compared overclocked. The heat and power dissipation on the 4890 would probably be a little scary though .
    No need to fuel the tin-foil brigade elsewhere on the Web re: hand-picked cards. When we can get our hands on these boards for our System Builder Marathons, straight from e-tail, then we'll give you the goods on overclocking with the same boards available to everyone else!
    Reply
  • privardo
    Originally we said that the price would be $249 in the US, and €249 in Europe, however if the Euros-to-USD conversion is correct (1.00 Euro = 1.31 U.S. Dollars), the North American version should cost $327 instead.

    If the retail price for this card is turn to be over $300, they will never fool this monkey cause he will just get two HD 4770 and crossfire'd them, which surely beat a single 275
    Reply
  • privardo
    "Originally we said that the price would be $249 in the US, and €249 in Europe, however if the Euros-to-USD conversion is correct (1.00 Euro = 1.31 U.S. Dollars), the North American version should cost $327 instead."

    If the retail price for this card is turn to be over $300, they will never fool this monkey cause he will just get two HD 4770 and crossfire'd them, which surely beat a single 275
    Reply
  • ifko_pifko
    Well... summing all the framerates is just nonsense. ;-) The games with higher fps will weigh more than the others. (I know that in this test the variance in fps is not as wide as in tests with more games, but keep that in mind in the future please and learn the basics of statistics... )
    Reply