NVIDIA GeForce GTX 285 in tri-SLI reviewed: great performance, not so great price tag
By Ross Miller 
posted January 27th 2009 12:51PM
posted January 27th 2009 12:51PM
posted January 27th 2009 12:51PM
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This setup can render God.
u meanit can render nothing?
And just think of your folding @ home scores!
does this beat xfire 4870x2?
No it does not and besides a 4870x2 cost about $400 after rebates. This card does not offer a any good value, not yet at least!
http://common.ziffdavisinternet.com/util_get_image/22/0,1425,i=229826,00.gif
http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,2845,2339630,00.asp
Yes this setup beats the crap out of the 4870x2 xfire in MOST games. Certain games like far cry 2 seem to run much better on ati, but a majority of games run better on nvidia cards. Even the games that most the time are better on ATI are running better on the gtx 285 setups than the 4870 based cards.
Nvidia is more expensive but their technology is better and more efficient. ATI sticks with a little older technology but tends to maximize those persuits. There was a big press release about ati's "new direction" about a year ago and how they are going to try to go for "real world" results at lower price points instead of trying to compete for the most advanced technology against nvidia in graphics and intel for processors.
Ati/amd has been very successful and I am anxious to see the x2 rendition of the 4890, but as it stands nvidia has always been able to stay ahead of ati at the top end.
Hell yea, nVidia!
These cards are getting bigger and bigger and bigger.
they should make them smaller
@Sea Urchin: that's what she said
@Scott K: that's not what she said
A lot of people in here ask, but will it play Crisys or GTA4,
My question is, what is so special about GTA4 that it needs advanced graphics. I played that game on Xbox 360, looks great and all, so why is there a need to get the latest Video Card to play that game?
The graphics on PC are significantly better. Much higher resolutions, higher quality textures, better post-processing and lighting, more realistic physics, anti-aliasing, and so on and so forth. The video cards in the PS3 and 360 are the equivalents of mid-range GeForce 7000 series cards, and the CPUs are weak by modern standards.
I thought the high requirements of GTA4 for PC was due to poor porting on Rockstar's part. At least that's what this article and comments claimed.
http://www.tomshardware.com/news/grand-theft-auto-gta4-pc,6666.html
GTA4 is very, very shittily coded. It's their fault. The game is big, but there is no reason for its epic failure on the PC.
Crysis has life-like physics. Every single tree, leaf, building, rock, ALL are moveable/destructible. No other game is as advanced in that way. Crysis also has real wind, and extremely advanced weather and AI. It's pretty damn well optimized, actually. The fact that it'll run on a 6600GT on a Pentium 4 (albeit on minimum graphics levels) is still impressive
Moose-
The 360's 3.2 GHz tri-core processor and the Cell are WEAK? I'd like to see what you have running in your computer.
No wait, let me guess, is it that AMD that was overclocked to 6.5 GHz and cooled with liquid helium?
lol stupid spartan, the procs on those consoles are both worthless powerpc procs. The cell, and the 369 processor that is based off the cell, is only good at processing streaming audio/video data like hidef video, it was not designed for heavy graphical computation like a gpu is. The gpu's in the current consoles arent very high powered at all, they just get to render everything at lower resolutions.
@kavu, spartan.
Actually, kavu you're somewhat wrong. First of all, Spartan, you have to understand that different processors are capable of different things. cores and clock speed mean nothing. For example, the Xbox 360 (IIRC) and PS3 both have poor branch predictors and don't support out of order execution, which means code that does anything "fancy" (IE not just vector math for example) brings both procs to their knees. Secondly, if your comparing two processor arch and they both do 1 instruction per clock and one runs at 3Ghz but takes 100 instructions to add, while you have another a 1Ghz that can do it in 1 instruction, which one is faster?
Secondly, you have to remember not all games are CPU bound, there are other factors in the equation. What about how fast textures can get from the media (HD CD DVD ETC) to the video card? What about memory latencies and interconnect speeds?
So yeah, think about what your saying if you don't know what you're talking about.
yeah i was just to lazy to go into detail. The people who would understand what i meant already knew though.
Then what about the PS3's Killzone 2 ?
It's the first console game that is being compared to Crysis in terms of graphics.
(Although Crysis is still the winner since it's running on a fucking PC, but still, look how gorgeous KZ2.)
GTA 4 is a joke graphically (the game is fantastic, don't get me wrong though). It uses a very old graphics engine and is not very damanding at all. They have added a few new graphical tricks and features to the games gradually, but its core 3d engine is pretty basic.
Requirements are a 256 MB graghics card
1.8 gh processor
1 gb ram
You could play GTA IV at max settings with a 4 year old graphics card easily.
Crysis on the other and is extremely intensive because of dynamic lighting, super high polygon counts, physics calculations and a slew of other factors.
It will run Crysis :D FLAME ON
"So how synergistic is the tri-SLI set up?"
Is corporate lingo beginning to permeate at engadget?
I say: To fully harness proper synergies, they first have enforce a unilateral paradigm, before putting boots on the ground to forecast a performance downsizing, and ultimately the strategic plan will have to be decided by a breakout benchmarking of competitive values before we can fully utilize a tri-SLI set up.
Correct. By leveraging team dynamics the Engadget writers aren't working harder or faster; they're working smarter!
Now that's thinking with your pointy hair!
They're working TIGHTER!
BINGO!
[anal retentiveness]
Actually, the use of synergistic in this article is completely wrong. Synergism means that the effectiveness of 2 or more things working together is GREATER than the sum of the individual parts. For the cards to work synergistically, the tri-SLI setup would have to offer MORE than 300% of the performance of a single-GTX285, which is definitely not the case.
[/anal retentiveness]
Synergy could also be drugy lingo, which is more likely for the Engadget staff imo.
You forgot "Leveraging their core competencies" (all 240)
doesn't look like there is a huge jump from a single 285 to double. But the jump from 2 to 3 is pretty big.
On another note, you notice most reviews lately exclude GTA, because it was and is complete crap
Maybe the PC port is, but the game is great!
While I agree that the PC port was extremely lazy and unoptimized, that doesn't mean it's not a fun game. I have a lowly E6600@3Ghz, 4GB RAM and an 8800GTX 320MB (don't even make that any more) and it runs the game okay with mid-level graphics... and the game is damn fun! Especially the (free) online multiplayer modes...
Heh, with 3 of those inside, you don't care for the money you give as this is an investment. Running those babies, will keep your house nice warm, no need for additional heating.
...waiting for the opportune time to turn on computer with three of these video cards to melt Alaska with Sarah Palin in it.....waiting.....waiting......right ....about....now......Damn it!! .... ....waiting .....waiting.........
Anyone know how 3 of these compare to 2 GTX 295 cards?
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/geforce-gtx-295,2123.html
Total War Empires is coming out! Woo-hoo! I'd better get three of these cards quick....
Why not 3 GTX295's?
if we are asking why nots, why not 300 paired up with 100 8-Core Harpertowns and just for the heck of it, another 50 Phenom X4 II
All powered by the largest nuclear reactor ever built, and cooled by the mississippi river
Brand it as a Cray, and name it the Cray Harpertown Operton Phenom Duo Quad Extreme GTX X4 II 285 X-1 supercomputer, Powered by NVIDIA, Intel, AMD, and wants of gamers 'round the world of 1000 fps rates on Crysis
Cray, for the heavy gamers among us
Because the GTX 295 is not capable of tri-SLI.
lame
i dunno, the more i hear about these cards the more im worried that if i buy now something will come out a week later and will make feel bad about the poor choice i made. Im wanting to buy a new video card to play games at 1400x800 resolution(around that resolution i have a 19.5" monitor) and i cant decide to buy a high end card for around 300+ or a performance/budget card for 150-250. Any help on this ?
It would make CRYSIS fucking run
I can never understand why so many people buy into the hype of sli and especially tri sli other than wanting a big epenor.It seems there are more problems/incompatibilities associated with running sli.Simply throwing more gpu's at a system will not make it a great gaming rig.Sure it will add extra memory but I haven't seen any games choke using a single card with 896MB onboard.Currently a single geforce gtx260 will run any game on the market smooth as silk with the right memory and processor.As far as future games it is a much more practical to upgrade your single graphics card once every 1-2yrs than 2 or 3 cards every 1-2yrs or adding more outdated cards to your single card setup.You can always off your used card on ebay to some poor sap just b4 the big price drop and update for very little cash.
Here is my budget rig(my only rig) and it runs all games beautifully w/res 1920x1200 vsync=on(I HATE TEARING!)
Gtx260---------------------------$250
Intel e8500 @4.00Ghz-----$170
4GB OCZ Reaper 1066----$70
Gigabyte mobo---------------$70
As you can see it's not the size of the e-penor that counts...since chances are you will be playing with it by yourself:)
I dont see the need to upgrade; my GTX260 that i oc'd to 650/1500/1200 still maxes out anything I give it. Maybe next year I will get two more for SLI.
So, one graphics card isn't enough and now, apparently, neither is 2. Anyone else get the feeling this is going the same way as shaving razors? Just name the things the Gillette Mach 7 Fusion GTX or some such nonsense and get is over and done with.
Why not call this card the nvidia MAGNETRON it blows out as much fkn
microwave radiation as one and if you run it on a daily basis youll
get a 40$ utility price hike for the month
isnt this the same setup that leo laporte has been running on his ultimate gaming machine for the past month or so?