NVIDIA GeForce GTX 295 Unleashed

We all knew that NVIDIA wasn't sitting idle since the initial release of AMD's popular ATI Radeon HD 4800 series of products. As today's information will show, it turns out NVIDIA was not only hard at work on a 55nm version of their GT200 GPU, but they have also designed a dual-GPU beast built around two of them.  There is a bit more to the story though, as the information and specifications below will reveal. 

As you can see, the GPU used on the GeForce GTX 295 is built using a 55nm manufacturing process and the reference specifications call for 576MHz core, 1.24GHz shader, and 2GHz (1GHz DDR) memory clock frequencies.  What's more interesting is that each GPU on the GeForce GTX 295 is outfitted with 240 stream processor cores--for a total of 480--but the memory interface is 448-bits wide and it's got 28 ROP units per GPU, not 512-bits and 32 ROP units like the current GeForce GTX 280.  The specifications reveal that the 55nm GPU as it is implemented on the GeForce GTX 295 will be sort of a die-shrunk hybrid of the current GeForce GTX 260 and GTX 280.  Max board power is rated for 289 watts, which is right on par with the Radeon HD 4870 X2 and, as such, the GTX 295 requires both 6-pin and 8-pin supplemental PCI Express power connectors.

    
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 295

The card itself is reminiscent of the dual-GPU powered GeForce 9800 GX2.  There is a perforated shroud that surrounds the entire PCB, with an air inlet at one end near the barrel type fan.  The fan pulls air into the interior of the card, where it is blown across heatsinks and then ultimately expelled from the system through vents in the card's case bracket.  Outputs on the GeForce GTX 295 consist of a pair of dual-link DVI outputs and an HDMI output, but the pictures also reveal a couple of diagnostic LEDs.  One of the LEDs indicates whether or not the board is receiving sufficient power and the other shows whether or not a monitor is properly connected and being detected.

      

      
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 295 Reference Card

Just in case you're wondering, yes, two of these cards can be run in tandem in a Quad-SLI configuration. And we should also note that a single card can even be configured to run with one of its GPUs dedicated to PhysX calculations while the other handles graphics.  Although the GeForce GTX 295 required a single PCI Express x16 slot, it is actually two PCBs with a heavy-duty heatsink sandwiched in between.