Thursday, May 28th 2009

ASUS Designs Own Monster Dual-GTX 285 4 GB Graphics Card

May 28th, 2009 06:43 Discuss (179 Comments)

ASUS has just designed a new monster graphics card that breaks the mold for reference design GeForce GTX 295, called the ASUS MARS 295 Limited Edition. The card, although retains the name "GeForce GTX 295", same device ID, and is compatible with existing NVIDIA drivers, has two huge innovations put in by ASUS, which go far beyond being yet another overclocked GeForce GTX 295: the company used two G200-350-B3 graphics processors, the same ones that make the GeForce GTX 285. The GPUs have all the 240 shader processors enabled, and also have the complete 512-bit GDDR3 memory interface enabled. This dual-PCB monstrosity holds 32 memory chips, and 4 GB of total memory (each GPU accesses 2 GB of it). Apart from these, each GPU system uses the same exact clock speeds as the GeForce GTX 285: 648/1476/2400 MHz (core/shader/memory).

Each PCB holds 16 memory chips, a 6-phase digital PWM power circuit, drawing auxiliary power from an 8-pin PCI-E power connector, the GeForce GTX 285-class GPU, and its companion NVIO2 processor. The PCB holding the PCI-Express bus interface, also holds the bridge chip. ASUS broke away with using the nForce 200 chip, and instead is using a yet to be disclosed third-party bridge chip. Currently, PLX and IDT are two likely sources for such a chip. The memory consists of high-density 0.77 ns memory chips made by Hynix.

The electrical-management on each PCB is care of a Volterra VRM controller, which supports the I2C interface, which means that the card supports software voltage control, perhaps a big plus for ASUS' Voltage Tweak feature that is gaining in popularity. Fused power circuit provides Over Current Protection while also facilitating extreme overclocking.

The cooler internally has the same basic construction as the reference cooler, it uses a single leaf-blower. The card spans across two expansion slots and is slightly higher than the reference design card. ASUS also used slightly longer internal bridges that make more room for third-party coolers, and the likes. Our source from ASUS EMEA conducted a quick 3DMark Vantage test proving the card's seamless compatibility with existing drivers, while also providing a significant boost in performance over existing GTX 295 cards. Being Quad-SLI capable, this card finally makes GeForce GTX 285 (effective) quad-SLI possible, and makes for the most powerful desktop multi-GPU setup ever conceived. ASUS designed this card despite pressure from NVIDIA enforcing its rigid policy of restricting its partners from custom-designing GeForce GTX 295. If everything goes smooth throughout the development process, the card might make it for a gala launch at Computex.

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179 Comments on ASUS Designs Own Monster Dual-GTX 285 4 GB Graphics Card

#151

alexp999

Staff

El_Mayoyou must be joking. lmfao
just why in god's name would you want that?
is your monitor a cinema screen?

Its called e-penis. ;)

#152

zithe

You'd think an e-penis so big would be painful and require some medical attention. Mental help for those who see it.

#153

El Fiendo

Thanks Erocker.

alexp999Hmm, I stand corrected :toast:

Yea, I got confused by their SP per chip thing thinking that it had 216 SP. Mind you I knew it was 275s in there I was simply mistaken as to what the 275 and 295 had under the hood. Cripes nVidia's lineup is tough sometimes.

#154

Kitkat

BOSEAnd there was time when we were happy with 32MB of ram in Win 95. Now cell phones have as much ram as desktop PC used to have.

Point is, you cant stop hardware progress, no matter how good the code is. There is always money to be made from something newer, bigger, better, faster hardware. Today its Crysis, tomorrow its the new Packman that will raise the bar.

No u sure cant which i stated clearly. but has nothing to do with 4mb > 1G. Those "hardware progressions" will come from the process size and ram speed for the next 10 -15 years. 4GB is for pissing rights it wont be a standard, raise speed or make textures go any faster. Its not progress.

#155

alexp999

Staff

El FiendoThanks Erocker.

Yea, I got confused by their SP per chip thing thinking that it had 216 SP. Mind you I knew it was 275s in there I was simply mistaken as to what the 275 and 295 had under the hood. Cripes nVidia's lineup is tough sometimes.

Both companies are as bad as each other. AMD naming structure for their ATI HD4xxx series makes no sense. Especially with a 4730 coming out.

#156

El_Mayo

alexp999Both companies are as bad as each other. AMD naming structure for their ATI HD4xxx series makes no sense. Especially with a 4730 coming out.

not confusing at all to me
when is the 4730 coming out?

#157

El Fiendo

alexp999Both companies are as bad as each other. AMD naming structure for their ATI HD4xxx series makes no sense. Especially with a 4730 coming out.

Oh I'm sure, I'm not saying nVidia is the worst. I just don't have enough knowledge of ATI. I actually haven't had any ownership contact with ATI since my ATI Rage Pro in my parents IBM, and haven't kept up with their lineup at all.

#158

BUCK NASTY

4P Enthusiust

Oh, I'll be in line for that if it's ever released. oh yeah..:respect:

#159

entropy13

El FiendoOh I'm sure, I'm not saying nVidia is the worst. I just don't have enough knowledge of ATI. I actually haven't had any ownership contact with ATI since my ATI Rage Pro in my parents IBM, and haven't kept up with their lineup at all.

Nvidia's slightly worse, because there's GT 1xx (OEMs), GTS 250, and GTX 2xx. Then of course there's still the 9xxx GT's.

For ATi right now it's just the Radeon HD 4xxx. 4500, 4600, 4700, 4800 series.

#160

eidairaman1

The Exiled Airman

i expect Fitseries to have 4 of these in his core i7 machine, that way his powersupply gets utilized properly.

entropy13Nvidia's slightly worse, because there's GT 1xx (OEMs), GTS 250, and GTX 2xx. Then of course there's still the 9xxx GT's.

For ATi right now it's just the Radeon HD 4xxx. 4500, 4600, 4700, 4800 series.

4500, never heard about it.

#161

BOSE

KitkatNo u sure cant which i stated clearly. but has nothing to do with 4mb > 1G. Those "hardware progressions" will come from the process size and ram speed for the next 10 -15 years. 4GB is for pissing rights it wont be a standard, raise speed or make textures go any faster. Its not progress.

As i said before. At some point, 256MB of RAM was for pissing rights, now 1GB is standard. Tomorrow its 4GB. The code is getting bigger and bigger, thus will require more space. The code can be optimized only so much.

#162

Wile E

Power User

BOSEAs i said before. At some point, 256MB of RAM was for pissing rights, now 1GB is standard. Tomorrow its 4GB. The code is getting bigger and bigger, thus will require more space. The code can be optimized only so much.

And if you want to get technical, this is more like 2 2GB cards, not a single 4GB one. Only 2GB of framebuffer can be used at any given moment.

I'd love to have this card. 2GB will even max GTA IV seamlessly.

#163

1c3d0g

I wonder how good this card can Fold/Crunch with the extra memory, as some BOINC projects can use well over 1.6 GB of system RAM alone...

#164

a_ump

lol beast for sure, but a waste imo. as said many time, just for those that desire e-peen and the utmost best even if it's 2% better for 200% the price.

bout that memory addressing stuff with 32-bit, i ran an 8800GT 512mb and then it died and i have my 7800GTX 256mb now. But i didn't gain 256mb in available memory, i've always had 2.8gb out of 4gb, even though the 7800GTX has half the memory of the 88GT. So can any of you explain why i didn't get a jump in avail system memory when switching to my 7800GTX?

#165

Mussels

Freshwater Moderator

a_umplol beast for sure, but a waste imo. as said many time, just for those that desire e-peen and the utmost best even if it's 2% better for 200% the price.

bout that memory addressing stuff with 32-bit, i ran an 8800GT 512mb and then it died and i have my 7800GTX 256mb now. But i didn't gain 256mb in available memory, i've always had 2.8gb out of 4gb, even though the 7800GTX has half the memory of the 88GT. So can any of you explain why i didn't get a jump in avail system memory when switching to my 7800GTX?

its not directly linked to how much video ram you have, nor is video ram what actually limits it. its related to the motherboard in my findings - i've seen some systems do 3.25GB and others 3.5GB, but those numbers never changed when different video cards were installed.

#166

a_ump

Musselsits not directly linked to how much video ram you have, nor is video ram what actually limits it. its related to the motherboard in my findings - i've seen some systems do 3.25GB and others 3.5GB, but those numbers never changed when different video cards were installed.

i always assumed that motherboard was the main factor in usable memory, simply because my friend has an 8800GTX, 2 more HDD then me, a sound card(i use onboard) and his system allows 3.5gb usuable. thx

#167

Katanai

:respect:

#168

entropy13

eidairaman14500, never heard about it.

Actually there isn't a 4500 series.....because there's only one card, the 4550. Forgot to include the 4350 as well.

#169

PCpraiser100

If only if I kept my crappy Honda for another year.

#170

Kitkat

BOSEAs i said before. At some point, 256MB of RAM was for pissing rights, now 1GB is standard. Tomorrow its 4GB. The code is getting bigger and bigger, thus will require more space. The code can be optimized only so much.

thanks on the first part but the secondpart is totaly backwards as i said we are in a much DIFERENT time then yesterday. Code > HW. and now processs are made MUCH faster as i said in the very first post amounts WONT mean much. as they dont now. Yesterday all they could do was raise it. Now we have faster dev to smaller processes. to repeat myself 22 28 32 40 55. Same with ram. Ram speeds are about to go UP. and 2Gigs will do X times more than what it used to asn FASTER. This card will be no faster than the 1g version. In ANY feild. on 3 frames maybe... over the 100 it was already?? Will u notice NO. Chip / ram speeds have WAY more influence then a ram amount. We should be over amounts and on to speed.

#171

cragdor

GPU 4 Gig of RAM

El_Mayoahh right yeah
i didn't know video RAM counted you see
(i'm noobish)

yes.. indeed it does.

It doesn't matter what the host OS is running. 32Bit systems don't register the VRAM the GPU does and that runs its own Architecture which is neither 32bit nor 64bit. The Host CPU doesn't understand what the VRAm is it just sends commands over the common PCIe interface to the GPU. Its like saying if i have a home network with a 64 bit computer and a 32 bit computer then because i have the 32bit computer connected to the 64 bit one the 64bit one can only see 3.2GB of its own RAM. And for those of you with Integrated Graphics with 4GB of RAM on 32bit OS's assign the spare RAM to the integrated chip! As the BIOS on the computer will split the RAM hence not having memory sat doing nothing.

#172

Tony

Kitkatthanks on the first part but the secondpart is totaly backwards as i said we are in a much DIFERENT time then yesterday. Code > HW. and now processs are made MUCH faster as i said in the very first post amounts WONT mean much. as they dont now. Yesterday all they could do was raise it. Now we have faster dev to smaller processes. to repeat myself 22 28 32 40 55. Same with ram. Ram speeds are about to go UP. and 2Gigs will do X times more than what it used to asn FASTER. This card will be no faster than the 1g version. In ANY feild. on 3 frames maybe... over the 100 it was already?? Will u notice NO. Chip / ram speeds have WAY more influence then a ram amount. We should be over amounts and on to speed.

At the moment Code > HW maybe the thing when it comes to games but I can tell you its the other way around when it comes to design software like when I am using something like Solidworks or Illustrator. Once my work starts getting complex the HW chokes; there is no system out there that you can't choke (and not just for the sake of it either - I'm talking real comprehensive creativity). Even with a 64 bit windows 7 that has the system limit of 4g removed (what its about 80G?) I could still choke the system using such a card. For productive creativity its all about workflow and the current software can more than handle it - but the hardware is still limited.

#173

Snipermonkey2

Necrofire32-bit OS = 4GB max of memory address space. If you had, say, 2GB of ram, then there's only 2 left for addressing, which means that your shiny gpu can use a max of 2GB of ram.
If you had 4GB of ram, then to fit all that vram in, it takes away from system ram, leaving you with way less than 3GB most people get from a 32-bit OS with 4GB of ram.

Typed in a hurry, does it make sense though?

A: There is a patch from Microsoft to allow the usage of more memory in a 32bit system but in turn it might eat your boot loader cause there is list showing which motherboards it works with.

B: I don't think thats going to be a issue because the hardware no matter what can see you have more ram than your OS says you do so I think it would work without any issues.

#174

Wile E

Power User

Kitkatthanks on the first part but the secondpart is totaly backwards as i said we are in a much DIFERENT time then yesterday. Code > HW. and now processs are made MUCH faster as i said in the very first post amounts WONT mean much. as they dont now. Yesterday all they could do was raise it. Now we have faster dev to smaller processes. to repeat myself 22 28 32 40 55. Same with ram. Ram speeds are about to go UP. and 2Gigs will do X times more than what it used to asn FASTER. This card will be no faster than the 1g version. In ANY feild. on 3 frames maybe... over the 100 it was already?? Will u notice NO. Chip / ram speeds have WAY more influence then a ram amount. We should be over amounts and on to speed.

I have to disagree. Sure, only a couple games will benefit from a buffer over 1GB, but they do exist. These games may not get a huge increase in average framerates, but they most certainly do benefit in terms of smoothness and playability. The more you swap out to system memory, the more stutters, pauses and texture anomalies you get when you lack sufficient frame buffer, even with OCed GDDR5. These issues don't show up in benchmarks where average framerates are taken, but they sure as hell are noticeable while playing the game. Furthermore, the gfx ram speed makes no difference in the issue, as it's already much faster than the system memory the machine has to swap out to.

Before my current setup, I had a 4870 512MB. I sent it back for a 1GB 4870, and the differences were noticeable in games like Crysis, FC2, and GTA IV. My Fraps averages were roughly the same, but the games were a hell of a lot smoother with the 1GB.

GTA IV, with it's huge textures, will see an improvement in gameplay with cards with over 1GB. Do you honestly believe that no other future game will have large textures like that?

#175

Johnytxtc

I dont really care about any of this. :nutkick:

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ASUS Designs Own Monster Dual-GTX 285 4 GB Graphics Card

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