Search
Search
Published: January 15, 2009 | Source: ASUS | Author: Rich Weatherstone

Asus EN GTX285 1GB Graphics Card

Test Setup

To ensure that all reviews on Overclock3D are fair, consistent and unbiased, a standard set of hardware and software is used whenever possible during the comparative testing of two or more products. The configurations used in this review can be seen below:

i7 Rig

CPU: Intel Nehalem i7 920 Skt1366 2.66GHz
Motherboard: Asus P6T Deluxe ‘OC Palm’
Memory: 3x2GB Corsair Dominator DDR3 1600mhz @ 8-8-8-24
HD : Hitachi Deskstar 7k160 7200rpm 80GB
GPU: ATI 4850×2 / Nvidia GTX280 / Nvidia GTX285
Graphics Drivers: Cat 4.12 / GeForce 181.4
PSU: Gigabyte ODIN 1200w

 

During the testing of the setups above, special care was taken to ensure that the BIOS settings used matched whenever possible. A fresh install of Windows Vista was also used before the benchmarking began, with a full defrag of the hard drive once all the drivers and software were installed, preventing any possible performance issues due to leftover drivers from the previous motherboard installations. For the 3DMark and gaming tests a single card configuration was used.

To guarantee a broad range of results, the following benchmark utilities were used:

 
3D / Rendering Benchmarks
• 3DMark 05
• 3DMark 06
• 3DMark Vantage

3D Games
• Crysis
• Far Cry 2
• Company of Heroes


• Race drive: GRID
• Call of Duty IV
• Unreal Tournament III

Power Consumption

Power consumption was measured at the socket using a plug-in mains power and energy monitor. Because of this the readings below are of the total system, not just the GPU. Idle readings were taken after 5 minutes in Windows. Load readings were taken during a run of Crysis.


 
In contrast to what we initially assumed, power consumption is ever so slightly up on the GTX280 according to our power monitor. I swapped cards over numerous times to check and it showed the same readings every time. Conclusive but disappointing. I felt a little like Hudson from Aliens when the editor asked if I’m reading it right. ‘I’m reading it right man look!’ came my reply.

Temperatures

Temperatures were taken at the factory clocked speed during idle in windows and after 10 minutes of running Furmark with settings maxed out (2560×1600 8xMSAA). Ambient temperatures were taken with a household thermometer. As we use an open test bench setup consideration should be given to the fact that the temperatures would likely increase further in a closed case environment.

 

 
Again we were wrong regarding temperature assumption as the temperatures were slightly higher than the standard GTX. Given that the clockspeeds are increased and now we know the power consumption has not decreased this does not come as so much of a surprise. 
 
Overclocking

For our overclocking tests I used Rivatuner which worked perfectly with our setup. More than can be said for the latest version of nTune which resulted in BSOD when we tried to run it. To test stability I ran 3D Mark 06 and a few runs of Crysisbench.

Stock Overclocked

Sure it uses a little more power and runs slightly hotter but it overclocks like a dream. Ever so slightly more than our test GTX280 which itself is a great clocker. Running at these clocks again did not cause the fan to spin up much higher than it did while running at stock speed which is testament to the excellent cooling offered by Nvidia.
Let’s move on to our suite of benchmarks where we pitch it up against the ATI 4850×2 and the GTX280…