"This new card is between a pair of GeForce GTX 280 and 260 cards in SLI on a single board."
lol
The GTX295 is a GTX260 sandwich, not a GTX280 and GTX260 sandwich
on second thought it appears to be two GTX280s but with 896MB memory (448 memory bus). It appears to be a whole nother animal alltogeather. The memory size and bus width of two GTX260s, but the shader count of two GTX280s.
I don't know what the hell it is... but it's not a GTX280 and a GTX260 in SLI, that would never work
The wording at Tom's Hardware could be better.
What they meant to say about the GTX 295 was: "This new card's performance falls in between a GTX 280 SLI setup and a GTX 260 SLI setup, all the while being on a single board."
Regarding the "Best Graphics Card For The Money" guides that are released on a monthly basis at Tom's Hardware, I believe they are an excellent source of decent information, for the semi-informed buyer. But whatever they say in there isn't the "be all, end all" of video card buying, and I certainly wouldn't base my next video card purchase
only on what they deem to be the best performing video card for the dollar, in whatever price range I'm looking for. It's merely a stable source of advice, which when used along with the numerous and various video card reviews on the web, will help the prospective buyer in making the best choice possible for their next video card...
Regarding the HD4850X2, it's surely a great price/performance winner, but if you value your hearing and case temperatures, you won't waste your time with it. There's obviously trade-offs that come with the cheap price. But if you can live with them, you'll get much more performance-wise than with any other card at that price point.
And two HD4850X2's vs. one GTX 295?
Are you kidding me? I'd choose the GTX 295 over those two unruly beasts any day, and I'm no current fan of Nvidia. Price be damned, there's no way that two HD4850X2's can be good for any PC system unless you live in igloo and are tone deaf.
But that's just me. Some people obviously will think otherwise...