Today we will be examining the eVGA GeForce GTX 285 SSC. As can be gleamed from the name, this card is built using the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 285 chip. Video cards based upon this GPU have been on the market for a while, and have had this graphics card power my system for the past few months.
eVGA GeForce 285 GTX SSC Edition
SPECIFICATIONS
As one would expect by the name, this GPU is an evolution of the GeForce 280 GTX chip. Most of the evolutionary benefits can be attributed to die shrink to 55nm from 65nm. Benefitting from this, the 285 GTX provides an additional 40MHz for the core clock speed, an additional 180 MHz for the stream processors and an extra 270MHz on the memory.
Note that we are examining the factory-overclocked SSC edition from eVGA. The SSC edition adds an extra oomph. The core clock is running at 702MHz, 54MHz over the standard 285 GTX and a full 100MHz faster than the 280 GTX. The shader clock is running at 1584MHz, 108MHz above standard and the memory is running at 2646MHz, 162MHz above the typical 285 GTX.
Specifications Comparison
While some things change, the basic infrastructure of the card remains the same as it still uses 240 stream processors divided into 10 clusters, 80 texture units, 32 ROPs and 1024 MB of GDDR3, which is benefitting from a full 512 bit interface bus.
The 285 GTX is not only faster than the 280 GTX, it is also more power efficient. NVIDIA has been able to reducing the amount of power needed to not only power the card, down to 183W from 236W on the 280 GTX, but has cut the power flowing into the card as the 285 GTX no longer necessitates an eight and six pin PCI-Express power connector, but now only requires two six pin connectors. This is the same connectivity requirements as the 260 GTX and 275 GTX.
NVIDIA's current flagship product, the GeForce 295 GTX, is a multi-GPU solution; therefore the 285 GTX is currently NVIDIA's fastest single GPU solution.
READINGS
The following information is provided by GPU-Z, which is a free utility from TechPowerUp that reports GPU characteristics.
GPU-Z Information
GPU-Z also reports on various sensor readings, which includes GPU and circuit board temperatures, fan speed and internal core voltage.
FEATURES
The GeForce GTX 200 Series has a number of architectural improvements over the previous generation of GPUs.
2nd Generation NVIDIA Unified Architecture: Second generation architecture delivers up to 50% more gaming performance over the first generation through 192 enhanced processing cores that provide incredible shading horsepower.
DirectX 10 Support: Microsoft DirectX 10 GPU with full Shader Model 4.0 support delivers unparalleled levels of graphics realism and film-quality effects for today's hottest games.
NVIDIA PhysX-Ready: GeForce GPU support for NVIDIA PhysX technology, enabling a totally new class of physical gaming interaction for a more dynamic and realistic experience with GeForce.
3-way NVIDIA SLI Technology: Industry leading 3-way NVIDIA SLI technology offers amazing performance scaling by implementing 3-way AFR (Alternate Frame Rendering) for the world's fastest gaming solution under Windows Vista with solid, state-of-the-art drivers.
CUDA Technology: CUDA technology unlocks the power of the GPU's processing cores to accelerate the most demanding system tasks ( such as video encoding ) delivering up to 7x performance over traditional CPUs.
PCI Express 2.0 Support: Designed for the new PCI Express 2.0 bus architecture offering the highest data transfer speeds for the most bandwidth-hungry games and 3D applications, while maintaining backwards compatibility with existing PCI Express motherboards for the broadest support.
SLI Multi-Monitor Support: Switch seamlessly between multi-display desktop mode and full screen 3D gaming with SLI. And enjoy full multi-GPU support for dual-display capable 3D games such as World in Conflict, Supreme Commander Forged Alliance, and Flight Simulator X.
GigaThread Technology: Massively multi-threaded architecture supports thousands of independent, simultaneous threads, providing extreme processing efficiency in advanced, next-generation shader programs.
16x Anti-aliasing Technology: Lightning fast, high-quality anti-aliasing at up to 16x sample rates obliterates jagged edges.
128-bit floating point High Dynamic-Range (HDR) Lighting: Twice the precision of prior generations for incredibly realistic lighting effects now with support for anti-aliasing.
Dual Dual-link DVI Support: Able to drive the industry's largest and highest resolution flat-panel displays up to 2560x1600 and with support for High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection (HDCP).
HDMI Output: Support for HDMI output enables sending both high-definition video and audio signals to an HDTV via a single cable.
NVIDIA PureVideo HD Technology: The combination of high-definition video decode acceleration and post-processing that delivers unprecedented picture clarity, smooth video, accurate color, and precise image scaling for movies and video.
NVIDIA HybridPower Technology: Lets you switch from the GeForce 285 GTX graphics card to the motherboard GeForce GPU when running non graphically-intensive applications for a quiet, low power PC experience.
Discrete, Programmable Video Processor: PureVideo is a discrete programmable processing core in NVIDIA GPUs that provides superb picture quality and ultra-smooth movies with 100% offload of H.264 video decoding from the CPU and significantly reduced power consumption.
