Introduction
NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 260 and 280 are based on the GT200 GPU which is made in a 65nm process. Now NVIDIA has performed a die shrink on this design, to 55 nanometers. This results in a lower power consumption allowing new models to be built. The first two cards based on the 55 nm GT200b are the GTX 295 and the GTX 285. While the GTX 295 is a dual GPU design, the GTX 285 follows the traditional single GPU approach. With a marketing name improvement of only 5, the question has to be answered if this card is a worthy upgrade or if you are better off trying to find a great deal on a GTX 280 or GTX 260.
In essence the GeForce GTX 285 is a GTX 280 with about 10% higher clocks and slightly changed PCB and cooler. The cornerstone specs like number of shaders, ROPs, bus width and memory size have remained the same.
The Leadtek GeForce GTX 285 that we have on the testbench today follows the NVIDIA reference design specifications to the letter. I'm certain Leadtek is already working on an overclocked version of the GTX 285.
| GeForce 9800 GT | Radeon HD 4850 | GeForce 9800 GTX | GeForce 8800 GTX | GeForce GTX 260 | Radeon HD 4870 | GeForce GTX 280 | Radeon HD 4870 X2 | GeForce GTX 285 | GeForce GTX 295 |
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Shader units | 112 | 800 | 128 | 128 | 192 | 800 | 240 | 2x 800 | 240 | 2x 240 |
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ROPs | 16 | 16 | 16 | 24 | 28 | 16 | 32 | 2x 16 | 32 | 2x 28 |
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GPU | G92 | RV770 | G92 | G80 | GT200 | RV770 | GT200 | 2x RV770 | GT200b | 2x GT200b |
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Transistors | 754M | 956M | 754M | 681M | 1400M | 956M | 1400M | 2x 956M | 1400M | 2x 1400M |
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Memory Size | 512 MB | 512 MB | 512 MB | 768 MB | 896 MB | 512 MB | 1024 MB | 2x 1024 MB | 1024 MB | 2x 896 MB |
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Memory Bus Width | 256 bit | 256 bit | 256 bit | 384 bit | 448 bit | 256 bit | 512 bit | 2x 256 bit | 512 bit | 2x 448 bit |
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Core Clock | 600 MHz | 625 MHz | 675 MHz | 575 MHz | 576 MHz | 750 MHz | 602 MHz | 750 MHz | 648 MHz | 576 MHz |
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Memory Clock | 900 MHz | 993 MHz | 1100 MHz | 900 MHz | 999 MHz | 900 MHz | 1107 MHz | 900 MHz | 1242 MHz | 999 MHz |
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Price | $120 | $140 | $160 | $220 | $240 | $200 | $330 | $430 | $400 | $500 |
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