QUOTE (The DvD @ Feb 3 2009, 12:26 PM)

On ultra-high settings it is already losing to the 6 month-older Radeon 4870X2. The smaller amount of video memory and nVidia's inferior memory management seems to blame.
Only in Fallout 3 and high-res 3DMark Vantage tests have I seen the GTX295 lose to the Radeon 4870X2. I might also mention that the frame buffer on the 4870X2 can only be accessed by one GPU at a time, so it's simply mirrored between them. This means you can only effectively use 1GB of the X2's frame buffer. nVidia doesn't have inferior memory management, they simply realize that GDDR3 still has more than enough power to handle any of today's apps/games. Maybe in the new GTX3** series nVidia will move to GDDR5 but until they do, GDDR3 will do just fine. Also remember that driver updates will always mean a 2-5 frame per second difference in some games; I have a rule of thumb that official video card reviews involve testing with drivers that are at least 2 versions older than the newest ones available at the time the review is actually published, which means anywhere from a 3-10 frame per second margin of error in the reviews versus picking up a card and immediately updating it to the newest driver set.
This post has been edited by Sir Modsalot: Feb 6 2009, 08:31 PM