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Rumor: Nvidia Working on Dual GT300 Videocard to Replace GTX 295

Paul Lilly — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 13:20:16 -0500

You can finally find Nvidia's dual-GPU GTX 295 videocards in stock at pretty much any e-tailer who carries the part, but if you've waited this long, you might want to consider holding out a few more months. According to the latest rumblings, Nvidia plans to replace the flagship part with a dual GT300 card.

News and rumor site Fudzilla claims to have confirmed the rumor, but other details, including exactly when it will ship, remain sparse. If all goes to plan, Nvidia might have a demo ready in late Q4 2009 and start shipping in January 2010, but that remains to be seen.

The new card will apparently be DirectX 11 compatible and built to run parallel processing CUDA, DirectX compute, or OpenCL. It will also go toe-to-toe with AMD's upcoming dual RV870 card.

Image Credit: Nvidia

EVGA Releases Single-PCB GTX 295 Videocard

Paul Lilly — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 07:54:41 -0500

We've heard rumors that Nvidia was planning on refreshing its GeForce GTX 295 videocard with a second, single-PCB version, and it looks like EVGA is the first to offer the new design.

"EVGA is proud to announce the latest and fastest in high performance graphics accelerators, the EVGA GTX 295 CO-OP Edition," EVGA wrote. "This card combines two GPUs onto a single PCB, a clear indication on why this card is called CO-OP!"

Core clockspeed will remain at 576MHz -- the same as EVGA's previous GTX 295 videocards -- however the company has goosed the memory clockspeed up from 1998MHz to 2016MHz.

EVGA also plans to sell separately a waterblock for the new card called the Hydro Copper. The full-cover copper waterblock ships with both 3/8-inch and 1/2-inch barbs and includes "an extreme high flow path design with a unique, integrated, pressure point."

Not yet listed in stock on EVGA's website, the CO-OP is currently priced a $530

Image Credit: EVGA

Asus Mars 295 Limited Edition Rocks Two GTX 285 GPUs

Paul Lilly — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 09:51:10 -0500

You'll have to look to Mars to spy the fastest desktop consumer graphics card in the galaxy, which is the name of the new GPU Asus is showing off at Computex. Instead of two semi-custom GPUs that sit "between" a GTX 260 and 280, the Asus Mars 295 Limited Edition stuffs two higher end GTX 285 chips -- the fastest single GPU in Nvidia's lineup -- into a single package.

All told, the new card boasts all 240 shader processors on each GPU, a full 512-bit GDDR3 memory interface, 32 memory chips for 4GB total (2GB accessible per GPU), and the same core/shader/memory clockspeeds as the GTX 285 (648/1476/2400 MHz). By comparison, a traditional GTX 295 sports 896MB of GDDR3 per GPU on a 448-bit memory bus with core/shader/memory clockspeeds checking in at 576/1242/2000 MHz.

According to TechPowerUp, the funky looking cooler uses the same basic internal construction as the reference design for GTX 295 cards, albeit extending "slightly higher."

No word on price or availability, but Asus did say it would limit the run to 1,000 individually numbered cards.

Image Credit: Vizworld.com

Rumor: Nvidia Releasing Single PCB GTX 295 with Faster Memory

Paul Lilly — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 13:55:41 -0500

The latest graphics rumor making the rounds for the past month was that Nvidia would be releasing a single-PCB version of its dual-GPU GeForce GTX 295 videocard, however it was unclear what other changes the design alteration would result in. At least until now.

According to news and rumor site Fudzilla, the slimmer, single-PCB GTX 295 looks to be more about cutting costs than adding performance. Following in ATI's footsteps, Nvidia will place both GPUs on a single circuit board, which should help the company save a bit on manufacturing.

However, only the memory is said to getting a small boost, with Nvidia increasing the reference design's frequency from 1000MHz on the dual-PCB version to 1100MHz on the single-PCB. Both the core and shaders clockspeeds will remain the same at 576MHz and 1242MHz, respectively, and despite shelving the second PCB, it will still be a dual-slot card. It will also be half an inch longer, Fudzilla says, measuring a full eleven inches.

If the rumor holds true, look for the revised card to show up by the middle of May with no change to its price point.

Image Credit: Expreview

Folding@Home User Crams 23 GeForce GTX 295 Videocards into a Single Server

Paul Lilly — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 11:53:41 -0500

Before someone asks, the answer is 'yes,' we don't doubt the Atlas Folder can handle Crysis. But despite outfitting his server with 23 -- TWENTY EFFING THREE! -- gual-GPU GeForce GTX 295 videocards, Jason Farqué, who goes by the username Atlas Folding, has a more important goal in mind:

"The reason that my father in enrolled in [a clinical trial] is the same as the reason I run my folding farm. To fight back, to do something," Farqué wrote on his blog. "To help science overcoming Huntington's Disease so that people as yet unborn wont' have as hard a time as he and others do. Because my father wants the human race to succeed, to get better, to overcome our bodies' inherent frailties by using our minds."

Farqué's father suffers from Huntington's Disease, and if Stanford's Folding@Home distributed computing project leads to a cure, then it will be hard to imagine a better use for such a gluttony of high powered videocards. Among the setup are 9 MSI-brand 295s, 14 EVGA-brand 295s, and and a single GTX 260 and 9800GT thrown in for good measure.

And if you think that's impressive, Farqué has been mulling a similar setup with Nvidia's 300 series once it launches.

Check out a video of the super Folding server here, a Maximum PC forum post on how Farqué handled the configuration here, and see how you can both help the cause and lead Maximum PC to victory in this year's Chimp Challenge here.

Nvidia GeForce GTX 295

Will Smith — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 12:00:00 -0600

We’ve made no secret of the fact that we love the pulse-pounding speed that ATI’s Radeon 4870 X2 boards deliver, but there’s a new speed king in town—the GeForce GTX 295. On paper, the two GPUs on the 295 fall somewhere between the GTX 260 and GTX 280, but this board delivers a crushing performance blow to ATI’s fastest part.

The GTX 295’s GPUs feature 896MB of GDDR3 memory and the full complement of 240 shader cores previously seen only on GTX 280 boards (current GTX 260 boards have just 216 shader units). However, the core and memory clocks are a touch below those of the single-GPU GTX 280 boards—576MHz and 999MHz respectively. Additionally, the new GPU is Nvidia’s first to step down from a 65nm to a more efficient 55nm process. The benefit? Mega-speed in one double-wide card. Even with the process-size shrink, the card requires a new mid-mounted cooler—that’s right, the heatsink/fan is sandwiched between two boards, each with its own GPU and memory.

Naturally, the card is outfitted with all the accoutrements we’ve come to expect, including a pair of dual-link DVI ports and a single HDMI port. Like the rest of the cards in the GeForce G200 series, the GTX 295 also supports general-purpose GPU computing, using both the open OpenCL platform as well as Nvidia’s proprietary CUDA platform. While we’re optimistic about the promise of general-purpose GPU computing, we don’t see any proprietary API gaining enough traction with consumers and developers to make a long-term impact. The same is true for Nvidia’s PhysX accelerated physics API. With just a handful of games supporting PhysX acceleration, and then only for superficial eye candy, we’ll continue to base our purchasing recommendations on performance in popular games rather than proprietary APIs that may or may not gain mainstream popularity.

Finally, the boys in green strike back at the 4870 X2

So where does that leave the GeForce GTX 295? With this board, Nvidia has shown that it can build kick-ass technology and doesn’t need to hide behind proprietary APIs to protect and expand its market. The GTX 295 is demonstrably faster than the Radeon 4870 X2 in every benchmark we use. And that makes our recommendation easy, without even considering PhysX or CUDA. Expect a street price of around $500.

Pictures Leaked Showing Upcoming 55nm GeForce GTX 260

Paul Lilly — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 14:00:22 -0600

If you've been thinking about upgrading to Nvidia's GeForce GTX 260 videocard, you may want to hold off for a few weeks. According to Chinese site Expreview, Nvidia will release a new 55nm-based GTX 260 along with a 55nm GTX 295 (GTX 260 GX2) in January 2009. And if history tells us anything, Nvidia tends to do well with core revisions (G92-based 8800GT, for example). Expreview posted several pics of the revised GTX 260, which it claims were sent in from Zotac.

In addition to a die shrink, the new GTX 260, or at least Zotac's version, looks to be built with a 10-layer PCB design rather than 14 layers as found on current GTX 260/280 videocards, Expreview says. The new revision also upgrades its 3+2 phase power modules to 4+2 phase.

Other specs look to remain the same, such as the number of stream processors (216) and core and memory frequencies. This means you might not see a leap in stock performance, but in theory, the power consumption, heat output, and overclocking potential should all be improved.

No word yet on projected pricing, which could either sweeten or spoil the whole deal.

Image Credit: Expreview