The battle wages on between the rivals who are both fighting for domination, each side keeps pulling ahead for a while. No, it's not a new video game but rather a new line of video cards from NVIDIA. With the high performance of the updated GeForce GTX 260, NVIDIA had to update the GeForce GTX 280 to fit in better with the GeForce GTX 295 that was also recently released. Originally, both the GeForce GTX 200 series were produced on the 65nm production process, but were recently given a die shrink to 55nm, which should increase clock speed, power efficiency and overall efficiency. This shrink saves NVIDIA money since it allows them to make more GPU cores per silicon wafer. - Overclockers Club

XFX GeForce GTX 285 (GT200b) Black Edition Review

The whole line-up has been given a face lift to 55nm now and XFX has pushed the limits of this new technology even further with the overclocked GeForce GTX 285 Black edition. Their package is similar in size to a small shoebox, emblazoned with their Black edition line, NVIDIA logos, Far Cry 2 graphics, 1GB of GDDR3 meory and PCI Express 2.0 compliance. The back lists the features that the card has and a picture of the top of the card. The card also comes with 5-star support, which when the card is registered also acts as a double lifetime warranty that is transferable if the graphics card is sold and registered again, which is great.

The GeForce GTX 200 family all share just the same basic design, except the GeForce GTX 295 card of course. The new design includes a die shrink to 55nm, which should at least increase energy efficiency. The card is built on a 512-bit memory bus, which combined with 1GB of GDDR3 memory clocked at 2600MHz effective leaves the card with a ton of bandwidth. The reference design requires two expansion slots. The top of the board has a similar image to the front box, with the celestial background and Black edition floating ethereal in front. The fan itself has a sticker with the BE logo, to clearly identify the difference.

Their XFX GeForce GTX 285 Black edition is already factory overclocked, so not much more can be squeezed out generally. We pushed for 36MHz more on the core and 194MHz on the memory, and this upon the already higher clocks of 690/2600MHz which is a nice bump over the reference settings. The XFX GeFoce GTX 285 Black edition was the fastest single GPU option in all of the tests, minus Fallout 3, and even put up a good fight with the dual GPU options. The fan on this card was not loud, with an idle speed of 40% and maximum of 56% under load for measured fan speed, but can be tweaked to higher values.

Cranking the fan speed up got things loud and air moving good, helping with overclocking stability a bit after the point we had it set for. The temperature drop was good on the load side with stock thermal paste. The removal of the back plate, combined with the fact that the screws use springs instead of the direct clamping pressure of regular screws, may also contribute to the temperatures, although this card had excellent idle and load temperatures. The clock speed, power and overall efficiency were definitely increased with the die shrink from 65nm to 55nm, as this card does very well against the older GeForce GTX 280.

Unfortunately, the card does cost a bit, and extreme overclocking is seemingly crippled since software voltage adjustment was dropped with the switch to 55nm. The card had a little headroom left, but required much more tweaking for full stability. The perks that come with a card this prestigious are worth the extra pennies, including the support and double lifetime transferable warranty. The card also folds excellently for you folders out there. For the best non SLI performance, this is the card to have. The price is at a premium, but so is the quality and support.