Thread: Zotac GeForce GTX 295 Single Pcb Card

Considering the GeForce GTX 295 is already the fastest graphics card money can buy, you might be wondering why Nvidia has decided to re-release the product in a new single-PCB configuration. The answer to this question boils down to a single factor; cost. ATi's last few dual-GPU solutions have all been single PCB cards with two graphics processors positioned in line with each other. Nvidia, on the other hand, has favoured a sandwich configuration whereby two PCBs house a single chip each.



This has enabled ATi to slash the costs of its Radeon 4870 X2 cards whilst still retaining profitability, forcing Nvidia to respond by reducing the cost of its own flagship to a level where partners are not making enough money. Clearly something had to be done to prevent the card's already-poor availability from diminishing yet further. The Zotac we are testing here is the first single-PCB GTX 295 to arrive in our labs so we were keen to compare its performance, power consumption and thermal characteristics to the original card. On paper, the specifications are still exactly the same, with the GPU architecture being a slight mish-mash of the GTX 280 and GTX 260.