ASUS GeForce GTX 295 review (ENGTX295)

ASUS GeForce GTX 295 (ENGTX295)

As should be rooted in your mind by now, today we'll be testing an actual final retail sample of the GeForce GTX 295, which originates from ASUS. Obviously in the weeks to come we expect to see an overclocked model as well... our overclock results consistently show there's a lot of headroom for faster clocks on this product. We have now tested three different cards and they can all clock just so much faster.

The ASUS GeForce GTX 295 as tested today is 100% reference based. There's literally nothing different other than the sticker on the product. It's a really splendid product though. But it boils down to the standard reference based clock frequencies:

• Memory: 1792 MB (896 MB per GPU) at 999 MHz
• Shaders processor: 240 per GPU, 480 in total @ 1242 MHz
• Core frequency: 576 MHz (Texture and ROP units)

Bundled with the ASUS GeForce GTX 295 is a selection of cables and connectors:

• GeForce GTX 295 1792 MB
• Driver CD
• 1x 6-pin to Molex power cable
• 1x 6-pin to 8-pin power connector
• manual / quick install guide
• VGA->DVI dongle
• S/PDIF cable

It's good to see that ASUS also includes a 6-pin to 8-pin converter. So if your PSU does not have an 8-pin PCIe connector, but does have 6-pin connectors... you are covered. Also included is a small S/PDIF cable. You connect it to your mainboard or soundcard S/PDIF lead, then connect the wire to the S/PDIF input on the card and now you'll have multi-channel audio over the HDMI HDCP v1.3 connection we just made.

For 499 USD you are however not receiving many extras. A driver CD with some ASUS tweaking software and that's pretty much it. New SmartDoctor offers gamers the opportunity to tweak the Shader Clock and Engine Clock independently, to squeeze the last bit of performance out of the system. All these can be achieved without rebooting or flashing the system BIOS. But... yeah we recommend Rivatuner over that of course.

Included however is a coupon allowing you to purchase up to five games with a 10% discount on each.

Warranty - ASUSTek graphics cards are generally backed up by a 3-year warranty that starts on the date of purchase based on the customer's sales invoice. The good thing here is that the warranty is covered on the card and not on the individual that initially purchased it. So if you resell your card in the future and hand over the invoice to the next buyer, he or she will still have a full warranty. ASUS does not have any step up or trade in programs currently.