A month ago, we reported about Nvidia’s intentions to
construct a single-PCB,
dual-GPU version of its 55nm enthusiast Geforce GTX 295 solution in order
to bring manufacturing costs down.
This strategy would put the chipmaker in a better position
financially for the time being, but as ATI’s 40nm generation begins to
penetrate the retail market over summer season, we can definitely expect a
counterattack from the green team with new 40nm GPUs and architecture in the
fall.
In the meantime, the GTX 295 will keep its supremacy until
at least the middle of Q3. Channel partners are running dry with stock of the
dual-PCB version, most likely because Nvidia is trying to deplete its inventory
to make way for the single-PCB replacement.
There is absolutely no difference in overall performance other than
a slight bump in stock memory speed from 1000MHz on the dual-PCB design to 1100MHz on
the single-PCB. More importantly, Nvidia is going to place both GT200b cores on
a single printed circuit board just as ATI has been doing with its high-end X2
cards. This decision looks to be a first for the green giant suffering
financial shock, and we are interested to find out if the new implementation
offers any thermal performance advantages.
The new card is based on the P658 PCB and measures a
staggering eleven inches in length, or half an inch longer than most high-end cards
today. It still takes up two slots and retains the same 576MHz core clock
speed, 1242MHz shaders, but 1100MHz GDDR3 memory at 896MB x 2. The price
remains unchanged, so expect nothing more than a condensed design with broader
availability beginning around the middle of May.
Published in
Graphics
Geforce GTX 295 single-PCB has 1100MHz GDDR3
Two GPUs on one board, available mid-May