Since the launch of the GeForce GTX 295 series ATI has done little to nothing to combat the card and while the Radeon HD 4890 is a very good card, the price of it doesn't put it anywhere near the level that the GeForce GTX 295 is at, nor the GeForce GTX 285 for that matter. Today we will be checking out MSI's version of the board and like every other one we have looked at there hasn't really been anything done to the card. This is due to the general design of the card, it's not easy to mix it up in the cooling department since it essentially sits between two PCB's. Today we will be seeing how it performs against some of the top single GPU graphics cards from both NVIDIA and ATI as competitors. - TweakTown

MSI GeForce GTX 295 Graphics Card Version Preview

Looking at the front of their box we don't see anything new when it comes to overall design. Across the top of the box we have the MSI logo along with some NVIDIA ones on the other end. The rest of the box is taken up by a picture of some kind of monster. Across the bottom we have a few stickers like live update, overclock ready and that the card is part of the gaming series. Above that we have some of the main features like 1792MB of GDDR3 memory, PhysX support and more. Finally, above that we have the model which is of course the GeForce GTX 295. Looking at the back of the box we've got some of the main features.

Having just a look at the GeForce GTX 295, we see there really isn't anything we haven't seen before. As always the case is covered with a shroud that takes up the whole card from left to right and top to bottom. MSI has of course added its own sticker to the cooler which sees the brand and model on the left side of the shroud. On the right side we see the fan which pushes air across the two cores and out the back of the card. Moving to the back of the card, we can see two power connectors, one is a 6-pin that sits on one PCB while the other an 8-pin connector which sits on the other PCB that holds another GPU of the twin.

As mentioned previously, the MSI GeForce GTX 295 carries with it the standard clocks that we have become accustomed to seeing. Time has been kind to the GeForce GTX 285 with the model continuing to still push out some serious power in our games. The biggest thing to remember though, is unless you are running a 30inch display the card does quickly become a waste of money, which can do all kinds of things when it comes to value for money. And if you are running a 22inch monitor that only supports low widescreen there is absolutely no value in the card because you could get something cheaper that will perform better.

On the other side of the spectrum, if you are running a monster 30inch monitor you're not going to get a better card. For the most part it's really impossible to contemplate adding a second card to get even more performance. With that said though, there's always room for improvement in games when it comes to detail. We can move with settings at very high to the same settings with anti-aliasing cranked up. The MSI version, for the most part, isn't really a surprise. It's stock in all departments from the cooler to the clock. We also see that MSI hasn't done a lot with the package which might be disappointing to who spend about $500.

The lack of bundle and stock clocks do keep price a little lower compared to models that pack a game you might not even play and you still have the ability to overclock the card yourself. All in all we've got a good GeForce GTX 295 because it sticks to the working formula that NVIDIA put out. While it might have been nice to see the bundle a bit bigger, we do have everything we need in the cable department and as mentioned, the lack of any games does keep the price down which is commonly appreciated more.