Posted 09/18/09 at 12:39:07 PM by Paul Lilly

Holy marketing, Batman, have you seen what Zotac has done with its GTX 285!? In a move sure to delight Dark Knight fans, the graphics card maker today announced a new limited edition GTX 285 featuring artwork of Gotham City's caped crusader on the heatsink.

"Batman: Arkham Asylum adventure has received glowing reviews from press all aorund the world just like our Zotac GeForce GTX 285 has. Putting them both together to make the Zotac GeForce GTX 285: Batman Edition was an obvious combination for us," said Carsten Berger, marketing director, Zotac International.

More than just a pairing of artwork to graphics card, Zotac is also bundling in a coupon for a full copy of Batman: Arkham Asylum, which gamers can redeem at Nvidia's nZone, Zotac says.

Perhaps somewhat of a missed opportunity, Batman will have to fight crime using Nvidia's reference clockspeeds. The GTX 285 comes clocked at 648MHz on the core, 1,242MHz on the memory, and pumps the shader clock at 1,476MHz, which are all identical to a stock GTX 285.

No word yet on price or availability.

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Posted 08/04/09 at 02:45:03 PM by Paul Lilly

Setting up and maintaining a liquid-cooling setup isn't for everyone, and it's this crowd BFG is targeting with a pair of maintenance-free, self-contained liquid-cooled GeForce graphics cards, the GTX 285 H2O+ and the GTX 295 H2OC.

Both new cards sport BFG's new ThermoIntelligence Advanced Cooling Solution, which when you take away the fancy title means you can enjoy the benefits of water cooling your videocard(s) without all the fuss. According to BFG, the cards are easy to install right out of the box and never need refilling or additional components. The benefit, says BFG, is up to 30C cooler temps under load when pitted against standard air cooled models.

"We're very excited to be the first company to bring this type of professional grade advanced cooling solution to PC enthusiasts," said John Malley, senior director of marketing for BFG.

BFG's GTX 295 H2OC will sport a 675MHz core clockspeed, 2214MHz memory data rate, and 1458MHz shader clockspeed. The GTX 285 H2O+ will run at 691MHz, 2592MHz, and 1566MHz core, memory, and shader clockspeeds, respectively.

The GTX 295 H2OC will be available in limited quantities starting August 5th, while the GTX 285 H2O+ will also be available in limited quantities, starting August 12th. No word on price.

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Posted 04/10/09 at 09:53:09 AM by Paul Lilly

More and more custom cooling solutions are starting to appear for Nvidia's GeForce GTX 285 videocards, with one of the more intriguing options belonging to MSI. The company has taken traditional heatpipe designs, fattened them up, and slapped them on its N285GTX SuperPipe OC graphics card.

"Today, MSI is pleased to announce the N285GTX SuperPipe graphics card, which not only brings to bear the powerful NVIDIA GPU - GeForce GTX 285, but, via the revolutionary ‘SuperPipe’ and Twin Frozr thermal design, offers a high performance and thermal efficiency graphics card," MSI wrote in a press release.

The aptly named SuperPipes consiste of 8mm thick heatpipes, which are up to 60 percent thicker than traditional heatpipes. According to MSI, the wider design leads to 90 percent better cooling performance. The N285GTX has been outfitted with five heatpipes in all, two of which are SuperPipes, on an all-metal heatsink with dual fans.

No word yet on price or availability.

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Posted 02/25/09 at 11:00:11 AM by Paul Lilly

In what the company claims is a first (and as far as we can tell, they're right), Palit Microsystems has released a GeForce GTX 285 videocard outfitted with 2GB of memory. Every other GTX 285 currently ships with 1GB.

Whether or not the additional memory buffer proves a worthwhile investment remains to be seen, but it's worth noting the GTX 285 is Nvidia's fastest single-GPU solution available, second in speed only to the dual-GPU GTX  295. We've often seen graphics partners outfit lower end cards with additional memory, which is almost always of dubious value, but that isn't the case here.

Palit also lays claim to offering the first custom designed GTX 285. Deviating from the reference heatsink/fan assembly, Palit has outfitted its GTX 285 series with two PWM fans and four heat pipes.

"Conceived for two GPUs, the two PWM fans are able to provide sufficient air flow to cool GPU on the graphics quietly," Palit wrote in a press release. "The PWM fan created for both fans can adjust the fan speed depending on the GPU's temperature."

Palit also offers the GTX 285 in a more standard 1GB configuration. No word yet on pricing or availability for either model.

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