The GeForce GTX 295 is a lie

Robert Hallock 16 Mar, 2009 at 1:31pm ET Article published in Tech

Well, not totally, but everyone loves a good headline.

Anyhow, Hardware-Infos has done the legwork to illustrate a brewing concern amongst journalists/bloggers/whatever: Is the GeForce GTX 295 a PR gag expressly designed to capture the single card speed crown?

It’s an important war in the GPU industry. Like it or not, these incremental refreshes that we’ve been dealing with for years come as a direct result of the battle. Every GPU company wants to claim that they are the manufacturer of the undisputed leader in GPU technology.

Why be content to let ATI walk away with the Radeon 8500 when you can bin the GeForce 3 ti500 ASIC and take the crown back? Ditto the GeForce GTX 295 and the Radeon HD 4870 X2.

There’s no denying that the war has worked out in our favor (yay cheap prices), but it’s not often that a GPU company launches a card with limited volume to fight a battle. NVIDIA last did it to capture the budget crown with the GeForce 8600 GTS, and people pissed and moaned until the cows came home.

We can’t remember the last time ATI did it, so if somone would leave us a reminder in the comments, we’d greatly appreciate it.

At any rate, many have begun to believe that the GTX 295 well will run dry after exhausted of its current stock. Thoughts? Concerns? Insights? Press the orange comment button.

Comments

16 Mar 2009 ~ 1:45pm BuddyJ It's fun to piss and moan about, but I don't think there's anyone around who'd actually consider buying one at today's market price. PR stunt, or an attempt to lure in deep-pocketed customers to slightly offset (unsuccessfully) selling thousands of cards at a loss? It doesn't matter in the end if they sell out. I can't afford one regardless.
16 Mar 2009 ~ 2:57pm MiracleManS I think that hit the nail on the head. I'll never own a 4870x2 or GTX 280/295/9000, but I will own the midrange card that dropped in price because they are having a pissing contest.
16 Mar 2009 ~ 3:12pm Sledgehammer70 I know for a fact the 295 is a live and in the market I have one myself. Replaced my new 9800GTX+ cards with it and well couldn't be happier.

Will the GTX 295 continue on after that first wave who knows? This could be Nvidia reacting to a small demand in the High Price range market. I know if I was making a product with small demand I would focus my efforts on my selling products that are making me money. If I need to jump back and make more of these high priced items I will do so when the demand is there.

The awesome part is Valves PC tracking system reports only 1.7% of peeps are running dual cards in their systems. I am willing to be t that number will get smaller unless the economy turns around.
16 Mar 2009 ~ 3:32pm Leonardo Sledge, the point was not to whether the 295 is actually being sold or not, but as to whether it's a short term offering put into the market as a "halo" product, for psychological effect. But yeah, I know it's out there and that people are buying it. There's already a small following (small because of power requirements, cooling difficulties, and price) in the Folding@Home community.

Is the GeForce GTX 295 a PR gag expressly designed to capture the single card speed crown?

There is press speculation the 295 will be very short-lived.
16 Mar 2009 ~ 3:33pm Thrax The dispute isn't whether or not it's in the market. The debate is over its existence merely as a ploy to regain the speed crown, rather than by doing it "legitimately" with a new generation of hardware.
16 Mar 2009 ~ 3:52pm BuddyJ So aside from Sledge, anyone else content with the wool pulled over their eyes?
16 Mar 2009 ~ 3:58pm floppybootstomp Interesting. If so, poor show by Nvidia, although it's out of my price range.

I have two main systems, one Intel, one AMD, with a 9800GTX 512Mb and a 8800GTS 640Mb in them respectively.

As long as they can handle all the games I throw at them - and they have so far - I see no reason to upgrade.

I have very nearly always had a video card that's been on the market a year or so cos it's usually at least a third of the price it was when first released.With the exception of the 8800GTS, I bought that Nov 2006, when it was brand spanking new on the market.

A fool's folly, really, within 9 months it had dropped from 240 to half that price.

It will be interesting to see the future of the 295 and what effect, if any, it has on people's trust with Nvidia if the 295 is going to be merely a showpiece to keep a lead in the numbers game.
16 Mar 2009 ~ 4:06pm BuddyJ My guess is it'll be a flash-in-the-pan showpiece quickly forgotten by the time the new ATI cards hit the market.
16 Mar 2009 ~ 4:09pm Sledgehammer70 I didn;t mean to come off as saying they are their... I just have a feeling the high end market is drying up for both Nvidia and ATI in regards to sales.

My point being that I am guessing they are side shifting their orders of product to items that are selling is mass quanties rather than in the 100's or possibly 1000's.
16 Mar 2009 ~ 4:46pm neoanderthal As long as the GTX 295 drives prices down on the other products, it doesn't matter to me whether it's a small-scale release or not. The top-end of the graphics card market is out of my reach. I just picked up a GTX 260 this weekend for the same price I paid for my girlfriend's HD 4850 - it's a very nice upgrade over the HD 4830 I had previously.

I admit I feel similarly with regards to the whole rebranding 'debacle' as well - if nVidia wants to rebrand the 9800 GTX+ as a GTS 250 and sell it cheaper, is that a bad thing? I'm all for it.
17 Mar 2009 ~ 12:05am Leonardo I agree with your sentiment that a product that makes other good products affordable is a good thing. Believe me, Nvidia did not release the 295 to moderate prices of their lesser series. Nvidia prices have fallen due to two factors: price pressure from excellent 48XX series ATI cards and the near complete inability of Nvidia to make much progress in the last year, except for slight speed bumps on renamed 88XX series cards.