Having sat undisturbed at the top of the graphics tree for a reasonable amount of time, NVIDIA was given a shock to the system when AMD knocked it from its perch with the ridiculously fast Radeon HD 4870 X2 card. Back in August, AMD's literally heavyweight card pummelled the competition with over the top quantities of bandwidth and compute power. Since then we've been awaiting NVIDIA's retort and it had previously promised to win back the performance leadership last year. Highlighting the theory that innovation may potentially be lost in the search for frame rate domination, NVIDIA's first riposte to AMD's monster is the GeForce GTX 295, a single card that features two GT200's sandwiched together. - Hexus

BFG GeForce GTX 295 Video Champion Style Review

So what exactly is the GeForce GTX 295 edition? It's essentially two intermixed GeForce GTX 200 series GPU's side by side in a single card solution, connected via internal SLI connection. But oddly enough, the GPU's aren't replicas of either the GeForce GTX 260 or the GeForce GTX 280. Instead, we've a hybrid GPU built on a 55nm process with a few useful upgrades. The transition to half node 55nm clearly has its benefits, including a maximum power draw of 289W. Armed with GeForce GTX 260 matching frequencies you'd be forgiven for believing nothing has changed. However, NVIDIA has raised the total shader count to 480 logics.

Rather than adopting the AMD approach of housing two GPU's on a single PCB, ala the Radeon HD 4870 X2, NVIDIA continues to use a dual PCB design similar to the GeForce 9800 GX2. Despite a well disguised exterior, there are two GPU wielding circuit boards within, ruling out any future potential for a single slot water cooled edition. Despite its long appearance, the card is identical in length to a GeForce GTX 280, and the black matte finish is a nice touch. No need to worry about fingerprints on this one. Over to the rear and you'll catch the back-end of one PCB, and the tempting SLI link, so anybody up for four GPU goodness?

As mentioned earlier, NVIDIA chose not to bump up the frequencies of the dual GPU based GeForce GTX 295 board, opting instead to raise the shader count to GeForce GTX 280 levels. Given the efficiency attained from a 55nm shrink, our temperature and power draw readings hint at ample overclocking headroom. With no additional cooling or tweaks, we managed to raise the default frequencies of 576/1998MHz to a very decent 684/2400MHz level and with the shaders bumped to 1474MHz. NVIDIA set out to win back the single card performance crown and has undoubtedly succeeded which was at least the main goal behind.

Despite openly admitting that many enthusiasts would appreciate the ability to purchase a powerful single GPU card, and it appears the only way for NVIDIA to topple AMD's Radeon HD 4870 X2 is with a tag team card of its own. The cynics will argue that stitching two powerful cards together via internal SLI isn't the most graceful means of achieving performance supremecy. And as expected, it's now AMD's turn to attempt to scupper NVIDIA's product launch and it's doing so by conveniantly lowering the asking price of the Radeon HD 4870 X2 graphics card. And a price war at the ultra high-end can only be a good thing really.

At present, CUDA and PhysX remain nonessential technologies, but considering that the GeForce GTX 295 offers the fastest single card performance of today and the GPGPU promise of tomorrow, so it's quite the prospect for the user who demands the best. Nonetheless, the GeForce GTX 295's target market is a small one, and the enthusiast looking to pick one up is likely to find $499 a small price to pay for what is just the fastest single card graphics solution available on the market today. For those who prefer to stick with single GPU solutions, there's the GeForce GTX 285 version.