Board Analysis

Before we discuss the differences between the first and second generation GeForce GTX 295 cards, let’s start by highlighting their similarities.

In terms of sheer performance, both cards should deliver identical frame rates. The graphics core, shader clock, and memory clock speeds are the same on both cards. NVIDIA sticks to the same 576MHz graphics core with 1GHz memory. The stream processors are clocked at 1242MHz.

Keep in mind that these speeds are a little slower than the GeForce GTX 275 GPU that the GeForce GTX 295 is essentially based on. Both chips ship with the same 240-shader architecture, with a 448-bit memory interface and 896MB of memory per GPU (1792MB total for the GTX 295). NVIDIA ups the graphics clock on the GTX 275 to 633MHz, with the stream processors clocked at 1404MHz and the memory speed is 1134MHz (2268MHz effective).

As a result, neither GeForce GTX 295 is going to be able to keep up with a GeForce GTX 275 SLI setup.

That’s where the similarities between both cards pretty much ends. The second-generation GeForce GTX 295 board has been redesigned to be cheaper for NVIDIA and their board partners to manufacture.

It all starts with the single-PCB board design. As we mentioned on the previous page, this is a cost-cutting move that’s a departure from previous dual GPU cards made by NVIDIA.

Considering the complexity of the original GeForce GTX 295’s board design, we naturally assumed integrating everything on one PCB was quite a feat by NVIDIA, but pulling off the board’s cooler reveals a fairly ordinary looking cooling implementation:

As you can see in the images, NVIDIA has devised a rather simple-looking heatsink/heatpipe combo to cool each GT200b GPU. Resting on top of both graphics chips is a cooler with two copper heatpipes that are cooled by an aluminum heatsink. Nothing more, nothing less. A copper base plate is responsible for drawing heat off the surface of the GPU’s heatspreader.


Each cooler is 100% distinct from the other. They’re not linked together in any sort of fashion and the heatsink/heatpipe units themselves are rather small considering the size of coolers found on the GeForce GTX 275 and Radeon HD 4890. Both of those GPUs sport coolers with much larger heatpipe/heatsink cooling.


How is NVIDIA able to successfully cool both GT200b chips so well with such a small cooler? Our guess is that the GT200b chips that go inside the GeForce GTX 295 are specially binned for low voltage, similar to how AMD or Intel bins their line of low voltage CPUs. NVIDIA has recently introduced “Green” editions of the GeForce 9600 GT and 9800 GT that consume less energy than their conventional counterparts.


We’d bet they’re doing the same for GT200b, only in this case the low-power chips are going into GeForce GTX 295 cards.

A large case fan then replaces the blower-style fan used on the GTX 295 and GTX 280 cards. With its location in the center of the card, this fan then blows fresh air out each end of the GTX 295 board – unlike other GeForce boards, the cooler on the second-generation GTX 295 isn’t completely enclosed.


In other words, all of the hot air from the GPU doesn’t exhaust outside your system case. Some air will exhaust out the right side of the plastic duct.

Of course, the cooler on the original GeForce GTX 295 wasn’t completely enclosed either. It had to double as a heatspreader for the second PCB, so it was made from aluminum and it had dozens of holes for ventilation.

To help cool the PCB itself, NVIDIA does employ a black aluminum spreader that rests around the twin GPU coolers. This heatspreader also helps to cool the board’s memory modules, the two NVIDIA NVIO display chips, and the PCI Express switch chip which provides 16 PCIe lanes to each GPU. Two heatspreaders are also placed on the underside of the GTX 295 for cooling the memory down there as well – they also act as protection for the memory modules from accidental damage that could occur during shipping.


Basically the cooler NVIDIA employs on the second generation GeForce GTX 295 is simpler than we’d thought it would be, but as you’ll see in the benchmarks on the next page, it’s quite effective at its job of keeping both GPUs cool.

Overclocking

As always we were eager to see how far we could push our Gigabyte GeForce GTX 295 card, but unfortunately we weren’t able to see how far the card could be pushed.

While we could dial in higher clock speeds with no problems, these speeds didn’t seem to register correctly, as performance was always unchanged in games. No matter what we tried the frame rates simply wouldn’t budge.

Our guess is we ran into a bug with NVIDIA’s System Tools utility and the GTX 295.

Accessories

Officially Gigabyte doesn’t ship their GV-N295-18I-B rev2.0 board with a game bundle, although right now Newegg.com is running a special that bundles the card with a copy of Call of Duty: World At War. Keep in mind though that this is a special promotion being run by the retailer, not the card manufacturer (Gigabyte), so your mileage may vary when it comes to where (and when) you decide to purchase this card, as supplies of CoD: World at War are limited.

Hardware accessories bundled with the card include a DVI adapter, HDMI adapter, both 6-pin and 8-pin power adapters, and the audio passthrough cable you’ll need to run audio over HDMI.