Friday, January 2nd 2009
GeForce GTX 285 from Gigabyte Appears in Hong Kong
Though no official information from NVIDIA has been released on the GeForce GTX 285, through leaks over the past month we know that this is a 55nm version of the GTX280. Although the 55nm GTX 260 has kept its name, it seems that the same cannot be said of the GTX 280. This Gigabyte card is said to use the same reference clock speeds as seen in the review from Computerbase.de which we covered just a few days ago. With a product code of GV-N285-1GH-B, it has 1GB of GDDR3 at 2484 MHz, 240SP's at 1476 MHz and a core at 648 MHz. According to TechConnect the Gigabyte GeForce GTX 285 has been found with prices as low as $412.8 (€296.3).
Sources:
TechConnect, HKEPC
24 Comments on GeForce GTX 285 from Gigabyte Appears in Hong Kong
I do agree with the comment about SKU numbering. How inconsistent and what a mess.
Wow fantastic, I can't wait to replace my GTX 280 with this!!! :respect:
Is the 216SP GTX260 still 2x6pin?
Basically vs the GTX 280, the GTX285 will be cooler, quieter (in theory), more energy effecient and be able to clock higher.
GTX 260-216 PCB:
Spot the differences. Two additional memory chips on the 280, two additional vGPU phases on the 280. Higher clock speeds and the GPU using all its available ALU clusters, ROPs and TMUs. The 2x 6-pin just narrowly missed the power requirements of the GTX 280. In other words, the GTX 280 could have made do with 2x 6pin, if it wasn't for its peak and average power consumptions being just 36W more (peak) and a whole 70W more (average) than GTX 260 (216 SP). 293W is a lot of power to ask from two 6-pin connectors + 75W (max) from the slot, not to mention, at stock speeds. Charts provided here.
I sure would be mad if I bought a gtx280 recently.
There was the 8800 series that went to 9800
You have the 9800GTX going to a 9800GTX+ after die shrink
Then GTX 260 going to a GTX 260 55nm after die shrink
Then the GTX 280 going to GTX 285
NVIDIA really should be more consistent, lol.
Look! Same resistor layout in the PSU area. There are redundant resistors to the missing MosFETS/voltage regulators. I wonder if we could just solder a couple in for extra power stability/OC. Certainly with an identical layout, and what we hear about the worse cooling performance of the GTX260, then a "dead" GTX280 might be worth buying off ebay just to swap over the cooler.
Q. On the 6pin power connector, which 2 pins are missing? Is that a 0v (GND) and 5v? or some other combination?
Hmm, what a design fail on behalf of PCI-E aux power spec. It would be much better if it was on a high current 5v rail. That way the power/voltage regulators wouldnt be having such a hard time getting everything down to sub 2v for the GPU and RAM. I guess this is all a legacy of the 12v PSU design and the general division of power across 3.3v, 5v and 12v rails. Since every other device (CPU, HDD) is using 3.3 and 5v there's only the 12v rail left that can deliver sufficient current to keep the GPU happy.
Oh well. Gotta work with what you've got!
The 6-pin can provide 75w each officially. That means that with 2 6-pins and the PCI-E slot, the card has 225w max to use. With the whole system peaking at 293w, I don't think the GTX280 is actually even coming close to 225w.The 8-pin only adds 2 ground wires, I don't think adding 2 ground wires really ups the amount of power it can provide that much, but officially they support double the 6-pin, giving 150w.
I'm sure the 6-pin can actually provide at least 100w.