NVIDIA GeForce GTX 285

[Mastermind]

A little more than six months after the release of its GeForce GTX 280, which was just a few days, the graphics card the faster the summer of 2008, NVIDIA offers the logical with the GeForce GTX 285. For this new model, let's all go, no technological revolution since the company itself the chameleon to change its manufacturing process we offer a GeForce GTX 285 which, as the recent GeForce GTX 295, a finesse burning in 55 nm.

The opportunity for us to see what brought this fine new recording, its impact on power consumption, but how the GeForce GTX 285 is declined by the graphics card manufacturers. We will also stop for the Radeon HD 4850 X2, the latest graphics card dated AMD designed specifically to counter the GeForce GTX 285.

[Charlton]

Little for this new GeForce GTX 285 NVIDIA as merely migrate to the manufacturing process of the previous GeForce GTX 280, 65 nm to 55 nm, a process already used by AMD for many months. It must be said that its 1.4 billion transistors, the GeForce GTX 280 should particularly benefit from this die-shrink, the latest high-end chip from NVIDIA has been noted for its disproportionate size. The transition from 65 nm to 55 nm should reduce the power consumption of the chip but also its warm and industry when speaking, NVIDIA will be able to produce more chips. Produced by TSMC, the chip GeForce GTX 285 seems to have given trouble in since NVIDIA took three revisions so that it is marketing under the B3 stepping.

NVIDIA logically advantage of its new manufacturing process to review the some of the technical features of the GeForce GTX 285. Thus, although we are always in the presence of a graphics chip DirectX 10 with a steady stream of processors, ie 240, NVIDIA review the operating frequencies on the rise. The increase is however moderate and thus the operating frequency of the chip goes from 602 MHz to 648 MHz while the frequency of stream processors rises more significantly, from 1296 MHz to 1476 MHz. The memory bus is still on 512-bit interface with a maximum of 1 GB of GDDR3 memory for a frequency of 1242 MHz.

Slightly faster, the GeForce GTX 285 takes over the cooling system already used on the GeForce GTX 280 with here and there adjustments. Note the disappearance of the back plate, presumably to reduce costs, while the power of the card is now two PCI-Express six pin each and not more than one PCI-Express 2.0 and eight-pin a PCI-Express six pins. Note also that the PCB of the card is changing while the memory chips are grouped on the same side, around the graphics chip.

Ultimate Asus ENGTX285

Asus is a leading graphics card manufacturers to adopt the GeForce GTX 285. If the giant Taiwan itself to resume the reference design developed by NVIDIA, with a card that will occupy two slots in your tower, Asus is distinguished immediately by the operating frequencies of the card, which are higher to those set up by NVIDIA, but we will have the opportunity to return. With its PCI-Express x16 and two SLI connectors, the Ultimate has ENGTX285 the cooling system developed by NVIDIA and consists of a finned radiator based on the memory chips and whose heart, consisting of a base copper, is mounted directly to the graphics chip. A large fan is then asked to expel the hot air outside the system. During operation, we did not find significant differences, in terms of acoustics, with the GeForce GTX 280. No back plate, the card is powered by two PCI Express-to six-pin and has two SLI taken. External Connection has two DVI ports and an analog video output format MiniDIN.

Using chips Hynix branded memory certified to 1300 MHz, Asus ENGTX285 Ultimate is distinguished from the GeForce GTX 285 in its most common operating frequencies. Indeed, Asus has decided to clock the graphics chip to 712 MHz against 648 MHz for the reference design from NVIDIA, while the flow processors operate against 1620 MHz 1476 MHz according to official recommendations of NVIDIA. The memory also benefits with a 1380 MHz instead of 1242 MHz suggested by NVIDIA. With such features, the GeForce GTX 285 TOP from Asus should certainly do better than the standard GeForce GTX 285 at the cost of a higher power consumption and a larger heating.

Finish with a few lines on the bundle which consists of a mouse pad imitation leather, a DVI to HDMI adapter, a DVI to VGA adapter, a Y-cable dual Molex to PCI-Express, a cable MiniDIN / YUV and a SPDIF cable supposed to bridge between your sound card and HDMI connections offered by the graphics card. Software side, the great Asus since provides only a single CD of drivers, the crisis of going through there. In its place we find a coupon to get 10% discount on the purchase of five games or software.

[Spykar]

AMD Radeon HD 4850 X2:

Et on recommend AMD, Sapphire or rather, proposes in effect to join two graphics chips on Radeon HD 4850 graphics card Radeon HD 4850 X2. The recipe begins to be well known puisqu'AMD applied to give birth to its Radeon HD 4870 X2 while NVIDIA uses the same method for some time now. Therefore, there on the same PCB two chips DirectX 10.1 graphics, ie RV770, each with 1 GB of memory GDDR3 video.

Always engraved in 55 nm chips incorporate the operating frequencies of Radeon HD 4850 with 625 MHz for the graphics chip and 993 MHz for memory. Proposed by Sapphire, this graphics card is not the subject of a reference design from AMD. In other words, Sapphire should be the only marketing Radeon HD 4850 X2.

Sapphire Radeon HD 4850 X2:

Presenting to PCI-Express, the Radeon HD 4850 X2 Sapphire occupy two slots in your machine. Supposed to be positioned between a Radeon HD 4870 and Radeon HD 4870 X2 to make shadow to GeForce GTX 285 NVIDIA, the issue of cost is crucial for the Radeon HD 4850 X2. Sapphire also has likely sought to minimize the bill. Thus, the memory of GDDR5 Radeon HD 4850 disappears in favor of GDDR3 memory while the cooling system is to say the least.

Each graphics chip is topped with a copper radiator with heart and aluminum fans. The memory chips are coated with an aluminum heatsink while two large fans blowing on the light bullets. Abnormally long, exactly 28.2 centimeters, the Radeon HD 4850 X2 not fit in all cases. It should be noted that the PCB has the tendency to twist on its end while radiator cover components floors of food on both sides of the card.

Using the PCI-Express second generation, the Radeon HD 4850 X2 uses a PLX bridge, namely a component PEX8647 identical to that used on the Radeon HD 4870 X2 and in theory able to handle 48 lines PCI Express.

Later operating frequencies, the card sees its graphics chips cadencées to 625 MHz while the memory chips Samsung GDDR3 operating at 993 MHz. There are, as regards connections, four DVI connectors, a connector for MiniDIN analog video outputs and a CrossFire tab. The power supply for the card for his part assigned to a PCI-Express 8-pin connector and a PCI-Express 6-pin.

[Frenzy]

To test the performance of the latest graphics cards and especially the GeForce GTX 285 and appointed his rival, the Radeon HD 4850 X2, we used a recent platform, details of which are shown below:
Motherboard Asus Rampage II Extreme (BIOS 0804),
Intel Core i7 920 2.66 GHz,
6 GB DDR3-1066 - Corsair XMS3-1600,
RAID 0 - Hard Drive 2x Western Digital Raptor 300 GB
Our system operates on Windows Vista Ultimate Edition with Service Pack 1. It was the 64-bit operating system, since we recently migrated our test configurations to this new platform. On this machine we will test the ancestor of the GeForce GTX 285, the GeForce GTX 280, but the Ultimate variant of GeForce GTX 285 offered by Asus. We oppose all of the Radeon with the AMD Radeon HD 4870 1 GB, the HD 4850 model but the Radeon HD 4850 X2 and Radeon HD 4870 X2.

Drivers side, we have used drivers NVIDIA GeForce 182.06 beta and CATALYST 9.1. Attention, testing World In Conflict and Crysis were made with the CATALYST 9.2 drivers, this latest version improves the performance of the games mentioned above.

3DMark Vantage

It starts with 3DMark Vantage logically that propels the Radeon HD 4870 X2 in the lead. The Ultimate version of the GeForce GTX 285 comes in second with a performance gain of 11% over the GeForce 285 standard. The latter is itself 10% faster than the GeForce GTX 280 in 2560x1600. As for our Radeon HD 4850 X2, it ranks third, with a very slight advantage over the GeForce GTX 285 to its nominal frequency. Here, the Radeon HD 4850 X2 is two times faster than the single Radeon HD 4850.

Call Of Duty 4 - v1.7

According Call Of Duty 4, the Radeon HD 4850 X2 leads the dance facing the GeForce GTX 285, the Sapphire card is 9% faster than the GeForce GTX 285 (standard) in 1920x1200. Compared to the GeForce GTX 280, GTX 285 model is shown as 6% more efficient.

[absolute55]

Consumption

A quick glance at the power consumption of the GeForce GTX 285 is required. We note in the intensity of the instantaneous current flowing through the cables PCI-Express, at a session in 3DMark Vantage 2560x1600, before adding the maximum power provided by the PCI Express bus. This gives us a fairly accurate estimate of power consumption of graphics cards. And we see that the GeForce GTX 285 consumes less power than its predecessor as the standard version of the GTX 285 requires a dozen watts less than the GTX 280 model to work. The Ultimate model, overclocked by Asus, is however quite close in terms of consumption of the GeForce GTX 280.

Conclusion

In the end, the arrival of the GeForce GTX 285 seems to admit it a little late to really enable NVIDIA to thwart the foundation of its rival AMD, whose Radeon HD 4000 still indefinables by their excellent price / performance ratio. Faced with the GeForce GTX 280, the gain in performance offered by this new map is always good to take, but it is far from sufficient to justify the passage of a GeForce GTX 280 to a GeForce GTX 285. It will obviously be more responsive to issues of power consumption with a significant decrease of the latter at full load. But significant decrease unfortunately does not mean drastic reduction. Even with overclocking Asus practiced by his model on "Ultimate", the gain melted in the sun!

In short, we refresh the GeForce GTX 285 is not revolutionize the genre and if the map is still very powerful. Is still too expensive to really be competitive with the offer of AMD. It must be said that 340 euros, the GeForce GTX 285 is trading at the same rate as the GTX 280 model even though the card is less expensive to produce! As for AMD, the Radeon HD 4850 X2 proposed by Sapphire leaves us skeptical! While the card is generally more powerful than GeForce GTX 285 and what is more cheaper, two obviously the arguments in its favor, but the manufacturing quality is unfortunately poor frankly. In fact we do not recommend it, preferring to guide you either a Radeon HD 4870 1GB or inexpensive to the Radeon HD 4870 X2, certainly more expensive than the GeForce GTX 285, but also more powerful.

NVIDIA us to blame the impasse on the features offered by cards with NVIDIA CUDA and PhysX, both technologies it is not true of the Radeon HD 4000. Maps to take memory support DirectX 10.1, which does not NVIDIA. But at the advent of OpenCL and DirectX 11, would be locked into proprietary solutions seems a very poor choice. In addition, some applications or games to take advantage of these technologies are still far too rare to achieve offset a price / performance ratio which is clearly in favor of AMD.

Finish with a few words about the Ultimate ENGTX285 from Asus, a card whose design did nothing extraordinary, since it is the reference design from NVIDIA, but the increased performance at standard face is appreciable. Remains unknown, the price of this card, and a certainty that new bundle of Asus is terribly incomplete.