Final Words & Conclusion
The Verdict
So then, the verdict. It's not exactly a secret that very little is really new about the GeForce GTX 275 when it comes to features, it's simply a hybrid in-between the GeForce GTX 260 and GTX 285. One might say Hybrid Power here :)
The GeForce GTX 275 was launched with one sole reason only, to battle off the Radeon HD 4890. It's the cat and mouse game that ATI and NVIDIA have to play against each other. Competition is what makes this technology evolve and affordable, don't you ever forget that. By doing so NVIDIA accomplished it's mission absolutely.
There's very little negative about this product really, you get the best from both worlds. The fastest NVIDIA GPU on the globe, combined with slightly less yet heaps of memory, saving on the price tag big-time.
See here's the thing, that price tag is going to be roughly 249 USD / 239 EUR. And I'm really pleased with that move. In the past 2-3 years you guys had to pay 450~550 USD for the gaming performance you get offered here today for under 250 USD.
I've been fighting the high prices for a long time in our high-end videocard reviews and we finally moved into a phase where it is getting effective, the industry is listening.
The new design of the GeForce GTX 275 reminds me a little of the look and feel of the GeForce 9800 GTX, to date a very lovely product. But make no mistake, the GeForce GTX 275 is fast... really fast. Whatever your gaming resolution is, you'll play your game with excellent framerates combined with complex and high quality image quality settings.
Of course, ever since GeForce series 8, CUDA was introduced as well. As such, the GTX 275 will have full support for PhysX and other 3rd party software. Right now there's a handful of applications out there that will utilize the GPU to help out with other functions, acceleration, enhancing or en/transcoding of video files is probably the more popular functionality, but also Photoshop CS4 recently got CUDA accelerated and helps out in some parts where the CPU struggled. It's a really nice development and I think 2009 is the year for NVIDIA where CUDA will get more recognition. In the months to come we'll chat a little more about CUDA and related applications in a dedicated article though.
Bottom line: the GeForce GTX 275 is a very attractive card to purchase. You have the full 240 Shader processors at your disposal helping you out when that extra little bite is needed. The product is priced really fair and will unleash an awesome lot of gaming pleasure on your PC. While I'm not saying the GTX 275 is a very much needed product, it definitely is a much welcomed one.
Dump the darn consoles, power to PC gaming!
Thanks go out to NVIDIA for sending out the reference board. Volume retail availability is expected on or before April 14th and expect the board partners to release various faster clocked models.
Update: the product started to sell in some webshops already at the suggested 239 EUR pricetag.
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