Nvidia GeForce GTX 275 Review

Consider a Red Sox-Yankees match up in the playoffs and you pretty much capture the spirit of what took place on April 2 when rivals Nvidia and AMD / ATI both launched mid-priced, performance video cards on the same day. Although each team sent their sluggers in to swing for the bleachers, Nvidia edged out the competition with its GeForce GTX 275 when measured against ATI’s Radeon HD 4890.

Nvidia aimed the newest addition to the growing GeForce family at the sweet spot between the GTX 260 and the GTX 285, but buyers get some serious value in the deal. The GTX 275 is based on NVIDIA’s 55nm GT200b GPU, essentially the same one used in both the dual-core GTX 295 and the GTX 285. Hosting a massive 1.4 billion transistors, the GPU has been tweaked for the GTX 275 and serves up a graphics clock spinning at 633 MHz and a processor clock tripping the radar at 1404 MHz. Translation: the GTX 275 is sporting some serious muscle often found on more expensive hardware.

Add to this the fact that the GTX 275 uses the same dual-link DVI outputs and HDTV output as the 285, the 275 also marks the launch of Nvidia’s version of Ambient Occlusion (AO) – a new feature of the Release 185 graphics drivers. Ambient occlusion adds additional realism by mimicking the way light radiates in real life, factoring in how objects relate to each other. AO demands a high processor load – performance can plummet by as much as 20% – but the effect can be dramatic, particularly in games deploying low light or indoor situations.

Roll in Nvidia’s usual suite of proprietary technologies such as GEForce 3D Vision, PhysX, and CUDA and add compatibility with Microsoft’s DirectX 10. Since it hardly breaks the the bank at around $ 250, the GeForce GTX 275 is a great addition to Nvidia’s fleet of mid-priced graphics cards.

Want to find out more? See Nvidia’s site for more details.

Nuts and Bolts:

– Core clock: 633 MHz
– Frequency of unified processors: 1404 MHz
– Unified processors: 240
– Memory type: GDDR3
– Memory: 896 MB
– 2 x DVI-I Dual Link
– Max. 2560×1600 digital video output
– Double SLI connector
– PCI Express 2.0
– Power consumption: up to 219 W (two 6-pin connectors)