Conclusions

While a lot of focus has been turned on AMD and their GPU architecture for this current generation of parts (and quite rightly so, all things considered), it's never a good idea to write off NVIDIA, who have continued to compete across most price points despite the inherent disadvantages of their rather more unwieldy GT200 architecture.

The GeForce GTX 275 is an excellent example of this, being as it is a part launched and positioned directly as a competitor to AMD's flagship single GPU offering the Radeon HD 4890.  In performance terms it does this extremely well, with a reference GeForce GTX 275 beating out a reference Radeon HD 4890 on many occasions, while also of course boasting functionality such as GPU-accelerated PhysX and CUDA which the other lacks.

As we've come to expect from XFX, the GeForce GTX XXX takes this solid base and plants a proverbial cherry atop it in the form of higher core, shader and memory clock speeds - This gives the card an edge of around 5% in performance terms over reference-based parts, but without compromising temperatures or noise levels to any discernable degree.  There can be no doubt that it's a solid offering with a lot of pixel pushing power to offer, which often puts it in a different league in terms of raw frame rates compared to a standard Radeon HD 4890 board.

The biggest issue with this approach is that yes, both XFX's offering here and the GeForce GTX 275 as a whole are faster than its direct rival, but AMD still well and truly hold the advantage in terms of pricing while also offering up a part that is more than comfortable at playing any current game at 1920x1200 with anti-aliasing enabled - Indeed, it really comes into its own if you're looking to make the leap to 8x multi-sampling at that resolution.  A bog-standard GeForce GTX 275 will set you back at least £160 compared to around £130 for a reference-based Radeon HD 4890, with this XXX Edition GeForce GTX 275 pushing the £180 mark - A fantastic deal amongst GeForce GTX 275 cards for sure, but a slightly harder sell against AMD's offering perhaps.

Of course, if you need the extra performance that the GeForce GTX 275 XXX offers, perhaps with an eye to gaming on a 30" LCD (which this board can manage beautifully in some but not all modern titles once anti-aliasing is enabled), then there's really nothing I can say to fault what XFX are offering here - It is quite the bargain amongst its direct peers, and you won't be disappointed by the level of performance that it offers by any stretch of the imagination.  If 1920x1200 is your target resolution however, the Radeon HD 4890 will still do the job equally as well to all intents and purposes, while also leaving as many as five crisp, new £10 notes in your wallet.  That £50 could buy you some really nice curtains. Or something.

Product information

XFX GeForce GTX 275 XXX 896MB

- Vendor web site
- Vendor product information

Recommended retail pricing (at time of going to press):

Scan - £178.56 including VAT

Many thanks to XFX for providing the sample for this review

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