BleepingComputer.com: best nvidia gtx295 manufacturer

im buying a new system, but i've delayed my purchase because i was looking for two asus gtx 295s for sli... and the guy at the store told me that at the moment he could only sell me two XFXs, should i buy them? or is there any advantage from one manufacturer to another besides clock speeds? another friend of mine who is into computers told me XFX is not that good and that if i wanted quality to aim for GIGABYTE... and i dunno if this guy is right because for what ive read there are lots of happy xfx customers.

There is little difference between manufacturers in terms of actual hardware. Most adhere to the reference card specifications. What differences there are centers around the bundle, logo's, price, and rebates. Almost all computer components are mass produced and quality can vary from company to company and even within a given model. For the most part, quality doesn't vary that much between companies. Before purchasing, check the store warranty to see if they will take it back should it fail after about 30 days. Beyond that, the manufacturer will take a defective card back and replace it. I have an XFX card and haven't had any problems out of them. Other card manufacturer's that I suggest include Asus, GIGABYTE, eVGA, and Sapphire.

I would tend to disagree, spec wise their all pretty similar, quality wise, may be a totally different thing. Im typically an ATI guy, and from personal experience, Ive used both Saphire ATI cards, as well as a few MSI cards of the same type, and the Saphire ones always seem to outlast the MSI ones, and actually run cooler and perform a slight notch faster. not a huge amount, not enough to say buy saphire, but the cooler temp and the longer lasting Saphire cards make them a better buy for me. I would say, if your going to buy Nvidia, from what I have seen/used, EVGA or PNY make the best quality Nvidia cards, and that is what I would recomend to anyone purchasing a NVIDIA video card.

Spec wise, they are almost identical. Manufacturer's are free to choose the quality of the components they put into their products, so long as they follow NVidia's or ATI's guidelines. Often, card manufacturers are allowed to alter, within limits, the firmware installed on the graphics cards. Some cards use better parts but they will most likely will last for several years regardless. That is, unless the card is defective. Computer components are mass produced and quality can vary between models and even within models.

guys thank you for taking your time to guide me a bit, but you also got to know that i obviously plan on oc'ing those babies (as much as the stock fans allow me) so i would like to know which one will last longer based on other people's experiences.. ill pay any difference from one brand to another no matter what to get the best, and if you guys got any reference of if an specific brand is better for slying than another or who knows... any tip that you consider useful for this newbie lmao

Once you get to the higher-end video cards, the manufacturers often include better cooling solutions. The GTX 295 is already a massively powerful card, so overclocking it on an already powerful PC may not be necessary. If you're going to overclock anyway, avoid the cards that come overclocked from the factory, they will cost more. The GTX 295 is a dual card solution so temperatures will be a factor along with the need to balance between two GPU cores, but since all the GTX 295's have dual slotted coolers, you should be fine up to a point. Almost any card manufacturer will do, but I'm most familiar with eVGA, XFX, and Sapphire. All card's I've got still run, I replaced them once they got too old. I did have one card, a PNY GeForce 4, fail on me after several years.

TechARP - GTX 295 Overclocking Guide

so that as long as i stick to any of the main manufacturers ill be ok... what i get from what you say is that either way the two 295s will kick butt, please confirm this point for me, just curious, will it be necesary for me to get both them the same brand?
and do i have to DL any extra software to configure the sli or is it as simply as plugging both in, slying em and to install the driver from the box?

PD: LOL ill do my part by googling a bit xD

Technically, since there are two GPU cores in each GTX 295 card, they are already in SLI. If you get a second card, you will have quad SLI with four cores. It will be fast and extremely expensive at about $500 per card. To use SLI, the cards do not need to be of the same brand, just of the same core. All GTX 295's share the same core. Never install the drivers that come with the card as they are hopelessly out of date, instead, download newer drivers directly from NVidia's website. The SLI option, assuming your motherboard was designed for SLI, you remembered to install the SLI bridges that came with the motherboard, and your power supply can handle two cards, is available through the NVidia Control Panel which is installed when you install your drivers. I put some links that be insightful at the bottom of the page.

Legit Reviews - EVGA GeForce GTX 295 SLI Video Card Review
Guru3D - GeForce GTX 295 Quad SLI gaming test

there are the specifics on my sistem( so you dont worry if those things will run smooth)
this is a new build i am planning to do in a few days:

1. Asus striker 2 extreme ultra sli 790i
2. q9650(as i am looking to play video games and the i7 only does around 10pct more in it than this one does, ill save my money)
3. 8gb ram ddr3 corsair 1333mhz
4. corsair sli certified psu 1000w(is that ok or do i need a lil more? because this rig has some heavy stuff such as blue ray burner and aditional dvd burner)
5. (2x) seagate barracuda 1.5tb 32mb cache sata2
6. 22'' lcd full hd(tho i was looking for one that hits 2560x1600 i dunno how expensive that monitor can be...and im pretty sure 2 295s can run virtually anything at that resolution)

btw ill make sure to DL the latest drivers from nvidia, all your help is being appreciated... LMAO its like having my own kick ass technician and for free hahaah

I agree with the processor choice, the i7 is much more expensive and often needlessly so. I personally would have gone for the Phenom II X4 940 or the 955, but the Core 2's still have life in them. SLI should work fine with that setup, acutally, with three PCI-express x16 slots, you may be able to install three graphics cards. But I'm not sure if that motherboard can handle 6-way SLI.

wtf are you reading my mind? actually in the paper i had in mind to buy 3 of those but as i dunno if it can take it i rather buying only 2 atm, anyways its easier to buy another one than sell one of em if it didnt work, i was also wondering if that mobo could take 3 295s as each one counts per 2... does 6 way sli even exists? i asked a geek friend of mine and he said he read somewhere that the 295 only has enough connectors to link 2 cards and not 3... but ill try to read and come back to you with some facts asap



EDIT: ive found it but only in spanish and my friend wasnt lying, the 295 has only capability of being placed in pairs(4 way) besides there are no drivers in this planet that could bear that... theres a chunk of what i read and translated to english

for a triple sli its necesary to use a sli bridge with 6 grooves, 2 grooves per card, gtx 295 has 1 groove only.

PD: btw the q9650 isnt even close to bottleneck the video cards(i hope) or is it?

You're right, the GTX 295 doesn't support 6-way SLI. I can understand why, once you get past standard SLI, the gains diminish with each active GPU core. So, if you had one GPU then added another, you would see a significant benefit but if you install a third or fourth, the gains will not be large. Most games today are GPU limited so chances of a CPU bottleneck isn't that great.

thank you for all your help and opinions dude, now i have another doubt and ill take advantage off this topic that is already open... what OS from MS(not in beta)can handle 8gb ram, quad sli, and be compatible with every game?? as far as i know xp32 cant take 8gb and dun feel like wasting its potential, besides the os id like 2 know what patches i have to apply to it

windows XP professional 64 bit will, and there is 64 bit versions of all vista packages. anything 64 bit will recognize up to like 16-32 gigs of ram.

I don't think quad SLI is supported in Windows XP, I know three way SLI is only supported in Vista and 7 from reading the FAQ at SLIZone. I suggest either Windows Vista or 7 64-bit editions as their WoW64 program, the program that allows 32-bit applications to run in a 64-bit environment, is more up-to-date and compatible then XP's. Even XP isn't compatible with every single game made. Vista will run most games circa 2004 onwards well and earlier games, unless they are extremely old, will work too. I haven't had any problems running some games from the 90's. Windows 7 will run like Vista but won't seem quite so sluggish and is free until the Release Candidate expires, at which point you will need the full commercial edition.