Eager to improve on the GeForce GTX 280 design, NVIDIA did the obvious thing and sent the GT200 for a die shrink. The result is the GeForce GTX 285, which is essentially a higher clocked GeForce GTX 280 board. The GeForce GTX 285 we are using in this article is ASUS' TOP model, which uses the reference heatsink but is factory overclocked. Now for the purposes of this article however we will be downclocking the graphics card to reference clock speeds and treating it as a reference GeForce GTX 285. That means this TOP version will just perform as the default design and which means you get a view of the standard performance. Of course being pre-overclocked it will boost greater gaming results. - VR-Zone

ASUS GeForce GTX 285 Standard Video Card Review

Once removed from its anti-static bag, you will notice that the GeForce GTX 285 looks outwardly identical to the GeForce GTX 260 rather than the GeForce GTX 280. Has NVIDIA cut costs and used a smaller heatsink just because of the die shrink? If you look closely you will see that the 8-pin power connector on the GeForce GTX 280 is gone, and in its place is a second 6-pin power connector. We will find out whether this translates into lower power consumption or not. There are two SLI fingers, which makes 3-way SLI possible but only if you have a motherboard capable of it and are willing to burn a large hole in your wallet.

The rear exhuast vent on the GeForce GTX 285 is marginally larger than that of the GeForce GTX 280 due to a change in the placement of the two screws. The outputs remain identical though, and the TV outport has yet to be replaced by a HDMI port as we saw recently on the GeForce GTX 295 card. Like the cheaper GeForce GTX 260 graphics card, NVIDIA has left out the rear shroud. Looks to us like a cost cutting move to shave a few dollars off their production costs. We decided to pry open the card to find out if our suspicions about the heatsink were true. And it is a fair bit smaller than the one on the GeForce GTX 280 board.

So there are no surprises with the GeForce GTX 285 really and it delivers the ten percent increase in performance commensurate with its higher clock speeds in most games. However, we find it rather disappointing that NVIDIA used a smaller heatsink, causing temperatures to remain as high as they were on the GeForce GTX 280 card. Another area in which the GeForce GTX 285 falls short is power consumption, which remains nearly as high as before. But even if we leave these issues aside, the GeForce GTX 285 is still not necessarily the card you want to be getting right now, and this basically due to some other alternatives.

AMD may lack a direct competitor to the GeForce GTX 285 at its current price of $380, but the Radeon HD 4870 X2 costs just around $70 more for a whole lot more potential performance. And we say potential performance because of the wide variability of CrossFire support. Where multi GPU scaling is done well, the Radeon HD 4870 X2 can easily leave the GeForce GTX 285 far behind. But when a game doesn't utilize multiple GPU's effectively, the gap between the two can get very close as such. AMD's ability to improve on CrossFire performance in the near future will greatly affect whether it is worth that extra amount.

Looking the other way in terms of price, the GeForce GTX 280 also offers good value now that retailers are dumping it in earnest, since we've seen price tags as low as $340. The small performance advantage of the GeForce GTX 285 is, in our opinion not worth the added cost.