BFG GeForce GTX 285 OCX
The also-all-new GeForce GTX 285 is no performance slouch, being based almost entirely on GTX 280, the erstwhile single-GPU champ, and adding in frequency headroom made available, in the main, by a move to a smaller, more-efficient manufacturing process.We took a look at the reference-clocked Gigabyte card and then, later, a well-overclocked Inno3D effort. BFG takes pre-overclocked a step farther with no less than four models to choose from, but your pockets need to be pretty deep right now, as the range starts at £330 and rises to almost £380 for the top-of-the-line OCX.
And here she is. All of BFG's current GTX 285 cards are identical on the outside, save for the sticker on the fan, and underlying differences are simply down to the yield-quality of the GPU and memories.
Knowing that 648MHz core, 1,476MHz shader, and 2,484MHz memory are stock clockspeeds, the OCX raises them to 702/1,576/2,664MHz, representing between six and eight per cent extra oomph for each parameter.
One the face of it, then, paying an extra £50 (~15 per cent) over stock and having frequencies that are only, on average, ~7.5 per cent higher, means that it won't look too good in our HEXUS.bang4buck analysis, but that's always the case with a premium product.
The actual card is the around the same size as the GTX 295, highlighting what a good job NVIDIA has done in keeping that cool.
The 1GB frame-buffer should come in handy when running games at high resolutions and with decent image-quality, and it's all contained on the topside.
This time, though, a couple of SLI fingers mean that you can drop £1,000+ for a three-way GTX 285 OCX setup. Recession, what recession?
The GTX 285 OCX's profile isn't as 'mean' as the GTX 295's, but you still need two six-pin PCIe power-connectors for it to function.
In opposite orientation when compared to its bigger (dual-GPU) brother, the twin DVI ports are the same, but HDMI has been replaced with seven-pin mini-DIN. We'd much prefer the former, though.
Summary
GeForce GTX 295 has been a known quantity ever since the GTX 280 launched in the middle of last year. BFG's fastest-clocked effort, the OCX, currently costs around £375, which is just £20 less than the twin-GPU 295. Appreciating the mojo underneath both heatsinks, there should be only one performance winner, yet AMD's dual twin-GPU cards, Radeon HD 4870 X2 and HD 4850 X2, might have something to say about that.
