Gtx-295 v.s sli: Gtx-280

[Robert]

Hello guys.

As most of u guys know, the GTX-295 is on high shortage, and right now, iam waiting for almost a month now to receive mine.

now in all my boreness waiting for the new stuff, i noticed a action from alternate, wich sells the gtx-280 for €249,-, i was shocked becouse i payed €479,- for my GTX-295.

i know alot of guys already got the GTX-295, and i know its a great investment, and hell, u can say u got the fastest card to your friends to as a special bonus! but i was wondering, would it not be better to invest into 2 of these 280s?

altough some things concern me, like: do the 2 cards make microstuttering, becouse i know that there is not much noticeable on the gtx-295, but i have no clue how it is with 2 280s, and iam also using a Corsair TX850W powersuply from corsair, its enough for the gtx-295, but iam not sure about 2 280s in SLI.

Altough with my concerns on the 280 SLI option, i also worry about the heat of the 295 card, i do have a good ventilated case, with good airflow, but i have no clue, becouse i know some people had fried these cards days after their purchase.

i know, i know, iam making this thread post way to long, but could a sli option couse a microstutter problem with a res of 1680x1050? iam forced to run on this res untill i upgrade my screen.

anyway, thanks for reading and the advice.

Rob.

 

[Rastalovich]

For my personal opinion atm.

From scanning the artificial benching results for a most modern 3dmark vantage, 2x280s score 29k maximum on hwbot. With a single 295, without ln2, hits 25/26k.

As for any stuttering, I have no idea. I've not seen a huge number of reports about it, and from my experience alot of similar problems, for all makes of card, either come down to mobo/cpu/memory/drivers/install and perhaps not the card itself - on the general scale. Ofc u do get batches of cards that do have issues, I seem to recall 8800 cards having a spate of issue threads at places, although the driver release at the time didn't help either. (no news stories on that either)

With that in mind, I also observe a number of people rma'ing 295 cards. Couple that with the proposed scarcity of the cards (I didn't know that myself) there could be issues.

God forbid any site claiming to be "news" related actually finding about something like that, they generally run of gossip and fiction. (hey we'll probably get one 2morrow now if they read OC3D)

Personally - I would stick with a single 280 on a 1680x1050. If I suddenly got myself a x1200 24" or greater, I'd be alot keener on getting something more. At this moment in time, I'd make damn sure I don't see anymore 295 rmas about. (I'm not an sli fan - so the 295 would always be the choice over 2x physical cards)

As to the power. Connections are the main thing for me. I power a x9650 gtx280 4g system with a quality 500w, so I'd figure 750+ would be ok if I did get another 280. I do fold and oc too.

 

[garethar]

Product recall for GTX cards

I'm currently having a system built with PCSpecialists, and they have told me that there is a product recall on the GTX 260, 280 and 295's (although not the GTX 285).

Haven't been able to confirm this anywhere else yet. They may be spinning me a line, but they have agreed to give me a 285 for the duration until a 295 comes in that I can swap out.

 

[garethar]

I have had an update on this. Apparently Nvidia have released some new cards with updated chipsets, and it is these that are being recalled. The 285 I'm getting is old stock which explains why it wasn't part of the recall.

Has anyone else heard anything about these new chipsets?

 

[Sihastru]

If you can get 2x280 for almost the price of an 295, by all means get the two 280s. The full 1GB of frame buffer + better spec'ed card (higher clocks, higher memory bandwidth) will make for a better setup.

The 295 is two chips in SLI (it has a SLI chip onboard) so it works just like any SLI setup. If they can get microstuttering out of the 295, the same will happen to the 280's in SLI.

The 285 is just a 55nm version of the 280. They are about the same in performance, the 285 has a slight clock advantage, but OC can cure that with a 280 for you.

For some of us it is not a choice. For example I only have a CF enabled motherboard so I had to choose the 295. If you have a SLI capable MB 2x280 SLI would work a bit better then a 295.

 

[Robert]

thanks for that comment, thats really giving me a good feeling about my purchase.

i wanted to run my second 280 in the 3d rampage II extreme slot, in order to keep using my creative Xfi Xtreme Gamer.

but the bios only allows (slot 2 = x16, slot 3= x1) and (slot 2 = x8, slot 3 = x8).

luckely its pci-e 2.0, so pci-e 2.0 x8 should be the same as a pci-e x16 1.1, but does anyone really knows if this really limits me in anyway? becouse iam not sure how much bandwith a gtx 280 really needs from a slot.

anyway, thanks

Rob.

 

[Sihastru]

Each PCIe x1 2.0 lane gives you a theoretical bandwidth of 500MB/s (yes, that's MB, not Mb). So 8x will give you 4GB/s bandwidth. 16x would give you 8GB/s.

Now, what a GTX 280 will do with 8GB/s can do just as fast with 4GB/s because, apart a few large textures (that are usually pre-buffered) the information exchanged is not made from such large packets. And the GTX280 has a nice big beefy framebuffer (1GB) to cope with any possible bottlenecks.

There will be spikes here and there, some games will see a small drop in performance compared to the full x16 SLI setup, but the nVidia drivers are usually good at balancing (and they are getting better and better).

If one PCIe x16 2.0 slot can cope with monsters like the GTX 295 and the 4870X2 or the 4850X2 then one PCIe x8 2.0 slot should do well with one GTX 280.

There are a few reviews out there with comparisons. I think you should ignore them (how they say... take it with a pinch of salt) since the new drivers are a lot better then the drivers they used in the tests.