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Published: February 10, 2009 | Source: XFX | Author: Rich Weatherstone

XFX GTX295 PCIe Graphics Card

Test Setup

To ensure that all reviews on Overclock3D are fair, consistent and unbiased, a standard set of hardware and software is used whenever possible during the comparative testing of two or more products. The configurations used in this review can be seen below:

i7 Rig

CPU: Intel Nehalem i7 920 Skt1366 2.66GHz (@3.835 Ghz)
Motherboard: DFI X58 UT T3eH8
Memory: 3x2GB Corsair DDR3 1600mhz @ 8-8-8-24
HD : Hitachi Deskstar 7k160 7200rpm 80GB
GPU: XFX GTX295
Graphics Drivers: GeForce 181.22
PSU: Gigabyte ODIN 1200w

 

During the testing of the setups above, special care was taken to ensure that the BIOS settings used matched whenever possible. A fresh install of Windows Vista was also used before the benchmarking began, with a full defrag of the hard drive once all the drivers and software were installed, preventing any possible performance issues due to leftover drivers from the previous motherboard installations. For the 3DMark and gaming tests a single card configuration was used.

To guarantee a broad range of results, the following benchmark utilities were used:

 
3D / Rendering Benchmarks
• 3DMark 05
• 3DMark 06
• 3DMark Vantage

3D Games
• Crysis
• Far Cry 2
• Oblivion


• Race drive: GRID
• Call of Duty IV
• Unreal Tournament III

Power Consumption

Power consumption was measured at the socket using a plug-in mains power and energy monitor. Because of this, the readings below are of the total system, not just the GPU. Idle readings were taken after 5 minutes in Windows. Load readings were taken during a run of Crysis.

 
 
As you can see from the graph above, the GTX295 consumes up to 50w less power than the 4870×2. This is a stunning achievement by Nvidia made even greater when you consider that the card is actually 2 cards in one.

Temperatures

Temperatures were taken at the factory clocked speed during idle in Windows and after 10 minutes of running Furmark with settings maxed out (2560×1600 8xMSAA). Ambient temperatures were taken with a household thermometer. As we use an open test bench setup consideration should be given to the fact that the temperatures would likely increase further in a closed case environment.
 


 
 
As expected, being a dual PCB design, the card runs hot, topping 90c when under load. The fan was left on auto throughout the testing which was noticeable when idle but did not become too loud even when put under extreme load. It certainly wasn’t as loud as the vacuum cleaner 4870×2. I should point out that the GX2 seemed to exhaust the majority of the heat out of the back of the card whereas the 4870×2’s memory sinks got very hot and would dissipate that heat freely into a case. Something you may want to consider when choosing either of these cards if, as I suspect, you will be using them in a closed case environment.

Overclocking

stock overclocked

The card overclocked effortlessly past the 650MHz core speed mark but here is where things began to get a little tricky, most likely due to linking the shader clock to the core clock. We did manage to squeeze a further 40MHz out of the card but anymore and the card began to show faults. Much the same story was to be had with the memory where we managed a maximum clock speed of 1250MHz. This improved the COD4 FPS by an average 12% thereabouts which is nothing to be sniffed at, especially when gaming at max resolutions with plenty of AA.
Let’s move on to our suite of benchmarks where we pitch it up against the ATI 4850×2, GTX285 and stock GTX280…