

Both cards cost roughly £220, give or take a few pounds. In terms of price, neither of these new cards will break the bank. Why is the GTX 275 GPU faster than those of the GTX 295? Because it has a dedicated dual slot heatsink for just one GPU, it has two 6-pin power connectors all to itself and it has more PCB space for better power hardware underneath as well. Memory is still limited to GDDR3, and the GTX 275 has 896MB of it running at 1,134MHz (2,268MHz effective) rather than the 999MHz (1,998MHz effective) GDDR3 memory of the GTX 295. The twin GPUs in the GTX 295 operate at 576MHz, compared to the GTX 275 which is clocked at 633MHz and likewise the stream processors of the GTX 295 GPUs run at 1,242MHz, rather than 1,404MHz in the GTX 275. This means that the GTX 275 is very similar to the GPUs used in the GeForce GTX 295, differing only in clock speeds. The GTX 275 therefore has 240 stream processors and a 448-bit memory interface. With the new GeForce GTX 275, Nvidia is sticking to its strategy of modifying its 55nm GT200 GPU to suit whichever price point it fancies hitting. ATI claims that the RV790 GPU can be easily overclocked to 1GHz and beyond (with watercooling), however we're dubious about how much the stock cooler can take. Stock clocked Radeon HD 4890s ship with a GPU clocked at 850MHz, which is 100MHz faster than the Radeon HD 4870's engine clock, and the Qimonda GDDR5 memory is now running at 975MHz (3.9GHz effective) rather than 900MHz (3.6GHz effective). The stretched design reduces transistor power leakage and strengthens signal integrity, which in turn allows the chip to run at higher frequencies. The Radeon HD 4890 is best seen as an overclocked 1GB Radeon HD 4870 – the architecture is the same and it’s still built using a 55nm process, but ATI has slightly stretched the design to widen the internal copper interconnects and put a crucial few more atoms of silicon between the transistors. Introducing the new competition from ATI and NvidiaIt’s been a while since we’ve seen ATI and Nvidia scrap it out with two comparably priced cards launching on the same day, but this month they’re right back at it.

Nvidia GeForce GTX 275 896MB Manufacturer: Nvidia US Price (as reviewed): Typical price $249.99 (ex. UK Price (as reviewed): Typical price £220 (inc.
