OC3D Review: MSI N285GTX Superpipe 2G PCIe Graphics card

[JN]

"Could 2GB of GDDR3, a non reference cooler and a pre-overclocked G200 core make the N285GTX the fastest single GPU on the planet? Read all about it in our latest GPU review..." - by W3bbo

MSI N285GTX Superpipe 2G PCIe Graphics card

 

[Rastalovich]

Great review.

Firstly I think the card, esthetically, looks awful - and the MSI logo at the rear looks cheesey over classy.

It does appear to hovver over the ASUS 285, and I think here is the thing. Whenever manufacturers add inordinate amounts of memory to a card, it's a marketing gimmick. I feel it's for the non-enthusiast to see it in a shop list and think that 2G is going to be better than the cheaper 1G alts underneath it. Furthermore, I think for 2G to come into play, ur going to need gaming in excess of 2560 - how rare is that ? Some good timedemos like World in Conflict have a meter showing how much memory gets used, that'd be worth looking at.

Excellent move in changing the key descriptions on the graphs, always found it a pita to follow when it ran the other way.

I do feel that benchmarkers prior to 3dmark2006 have had their day. I'd even argue 06 has, but atleast it keeps a foothold in dx9, that unfortunately game devs also have.

I'd class this card alongside the 9400GT 1G releases, the figures are there to look nice in a sales ad.

Very disappointed that the card doesn't blow the ASUS version away with it's alt cooler.

Good stuff.

 

[theelusiveyoda]

i think it would have been better if they went all black,

recently more products have been black, the red pcb on the Msi Looks a bit out of place on that card. And also the gtx 285 is to high priced for the same price you can buy a 4870x2 or a gtx295 if you know where to look.

 

[ali_james]

Nice review dude. I think Rast has nailed down my thoughts exactly on the extra memory.

One thing that I don't seem to get, why has nvidia stuck with ddr3 while ati has pushed on and gone for ddr5 and previously used ddr4 as well? Marketing again? The higher number not really meaning anything if ddr3 is still capable even at the real top end price range?

 

[Rastalovich]

The benefit in real terms is less than ddr2->ddr3.

 

[cjone2]

Like the cooling but not worth the extra money

 

[mighty_moll]

Although pricing is an important issue - performance is the deciding factor. I'd love to see how 2 of these cards performed on the bench tests in comparison to the current leading 2 card GPU set-ups.