Palit GeForce GTX 275 896MB Graphics Card

Introduction

We've always been a fan of the GTX 275; there's really no reason not to like it and while it's nothing more than a rebranded model which can be confusing to some, the card does exactly what we want, offers good performance and sits at a good price point.

Today we're going to be checking out a GTX 275 from Palit and while it doesn't carry the Sonic naming scheme which tends to peak our interest more, it is still unique in the cooling department.

This really is the better side to improve upon when it comes to releasing a card, as overclocking can be done yourself and you don't have to worry about voiding the warranty. While you can replace the cooler on a graphics card without too much drama, you do instantly void your warranty which is something people want to avoid.

Let's take the time to have a quick look at the package Palit has put together before we have a closer look at the card. We'll then check out how the performance is with their version of the GTX 275.

The Package

Having a look at the package, we don't see anything too out of the ordinary. We can see a large portion of the box is taken up by Frobot along with a bit of a motto. We can also see across the top of the box we have the Palit logo.



Across the bottom we have the GeForce logo along with a HDCP one. We also have a sticker that gives us some of the main details on the card which includes the model, which is a GTX 275. We also see that it comes with 896MB of GDDR3 memory on a 448-bit memory bus. There's also mention that we've got two Dual-Link DVI connectors along with the HDMI logo and a few other features.



Turning the box over, we have some of the main features that the NVIDIA GPU offers along with a bit of a run down on two major features which include PhysX and GPU Accelerated Transcoding. We've also got the Palit logo, website URL and a contact e-mail address.



Having a look inside, we can see a pretty typical setup when it comes to the Palit package. In the paperwork department we have a small installation guide along with a driver CD.



In the cable department we've got a duel molex to 6-Pin PCI-E connector, component/RCA out dongle, DVI to VGA connector, DVI to HDMI connector along with a loopback cable that helps get sound through the HDMI connector.

The Card

Having a look at the card for the first time, we can see that Palit has opted for a new cooler which we mentioned in the introduction. Like most companies, we see that they've opted for a pretty meaty one which hopefully cools the card well.



With the shroud covering most of the card there isn't a whole lot to see; we have two fans that sit in the middle and behind that we have a number of fins along with three heat pipes that help pull the heat away from the core.



Towards the back of the card we find two 6-Pin PCI Express power connectors that are required to power the card. Next to these connectors we also have another little white connector which is used to get sound through the HDMI connector with the help of a loop back cable that is provided in the package.



Closer to the front of the card we have two SLI connectors which gives us the ability to run up to three of these cards together.



In the I/O department we have two Dual-Link DVI connectors along with a single S-Video connector. The top half gives us a number of vents which help let the hot air escape out the back of the card.


Specifications

As we mentioned, this card isn't part of the Sonic series so it does carry with it the stock clocks which we can see below. The core comes in at 633MHz while the shader clock comes in at 1404MHz.



The 896MB of GDDR3 memory comes in at 1134MHz or 2268MHz DDR, which like the other clocks is at stock speed.

Test System Setup and 3DMark Vantage

Test System Setup

Processor(s): Intel i7 920 @ 3.8GHz (190MHz x 20)
Cooling: Noctua NH-U12P (Supplied by Noctua)
Motherboard(s): GIGABYTE EX58-UD5 (Supplied by GIGABYTE)
Memory: 3 X 2GB OCZ Technology PC-12800 DDR-3 8-8-8-24 (OCZ3G1600LV6GK)
Hard Disk(s): Western Digital 300GB Velicorapter (Supplied by Western Digital)
Operating System: Windows XP Professional SP2, Windows Vista SP1 64-Bit
Drivers: ForceWare 185.85, Catalyst 9.4


We'll be seeing how the GTX 275 from Palit goes against the lower end GTS 250 to see what kind of performance boost we get, while also comparing it to the top dog single GPU card from ATI, the HD 4890.


3DMark Vantage

Version and / or Patch Used: 1.0.1
Developer Homepage: http://www.futuremark.com
Product Homepage: http://www.futuremark.com/products/3dmarkvantage/
Buy It Here




3DMark Vantage is the new industry standard PC gaming performance benchmark from Futuremark, newly designed for Windows Vista and DirectX10. It includes two new graphics tests, two new CPU tests, several new feature tests, and support for the latest hardware.

3DMark Vantage is based on a completely new rendering engine, developed specifically to take full advantage of DirectX10, the new graphics API from Microsoft.




Straight away we see the GTX 275 perform well against the other cards here. We can see moving from the GTS 250 we get quite the boost in performance.

Benchmarks - PT Boats: Knights of the Sea

PT Boats: Knights of the Sea

Version and / or Patch Used: Benchmark Demo
Developer Homepage: http://en.akella.com/
Product Homepage: http://www.pt-boats.net/





PT Boats: Knights of the Sea is a naval action simulator that places gamers in charge of a mosquito fleet of the Allied Forces, Russia or Germany during the height of World War II.

Using the latest Direct X 10 technology PT Boards - Knights of the Sea manages to apply a lot of stress to the components of today which in turn gives us quite an intensive benchmark.






PT Boats paints a similar picture with the GTX 275 again performing well against both cards we have here. We can see at 2560 x 1600 the card is able to offer us a minimum above 20 FPS.

Benchmarks - CINEBENCH R10

CINEBENCH R10

Version and / or Patch Used: Release 10
Developer Homepage: http://www.maxon.net/
Product Homepage: http://www.maxon.net




CINEBENCH is a real-world test suite that assesses your computer's performace capabilities. MAXON CINEBENCH is based on MAXON's award-winning animation software, CINEMA 4D, which is used extensively by studios and production houses worldwide for 3D content creation. MAXON software has been used in blockbuster movies such as Spider-Man, Star Wars, The Chronicles of Narnia and many more.

MAXON CINEBENCH runs several tests on your computer to measure the performance of the main processor and the graphics card under real world circumstances. The benchmark application makes use of up to 16 CPUs or CPU cores and is available for Windows (32-bit and 64-Bit) and Macintosh (PPC and Intel-based).




Here we can see that all the cards are quite close together, though the HD 4890 from ATI does perform slightly better.

Benchmarks - World in Conflict

World in Conflict

Version and / or Patch Used: 1.0.0.5
Timedemo or Level Used: Built-in Test
Developer Homepage: http://www.massive.se
Product Homepage: http://www.worldinconflict.com





World in Conflict is a real-time strategy video game by Massive Entertainment and to be published by Sierra Entertainment for Windows (DX9 and DX10).

The game is set in 1989 where economic troubles cripple the Soviet Union and threaten to dissolve it. However, the title pursues a "what if" scenario where, in this case, the Soviet Union does not collapse and instead pursues a course of war to remain in power. It is an intensive new game is sure to put plenty of stress on even the latest graphics cards and we use the built-in benchmarking for our testing.






Here we can see the GTX 275 gives us a good boost over the GTS 250. Compared to the HD 4890 we find that both cards sit quite close to each other.

Benchmarks - Crysis Warhead

Crysis Warhead

Version and / or Patch Used: unpatched
Timedemo or Level Used: Airfield
Developer Homepage: http://www.crytek.com
Product Homepage: http://crysiswarhead.ea.com/
Buy It Here




Crysis Warhead updates and refines the gameplay of the original game through a sidestory plot involving Psycho, one of previous protagonist Nomad's allies. The game is a parallel story that follows Sergeant Michael "Psycho" Sykes, a character from the original Crysis, as he faces his own trials and challenges on the other side of the island during the time period of the first game.

It also showcases a new, enhanced and optimized version of CryEngine 2 using full DX10 extensions and is the first game developed by Crytek's Budapest studio.





Across the board we see the GTX 275 from Palit perform well, but Warhead performance on a whole is pretty ordinary due to bad coding on the developers part.

Benchmarks - Far Cry 2

Far Cry 2

Version and / or Patch Used: 1.01
Timedemo or Level Used: Ranch Long
Developer Homepage: http://www.ubi.com/
Product Homepage: http://www.farcry2.com/
Buy It Here




The Dunia Engine was built specifically for Far Cry 2 by the award-winning Ubisoft Montreal development team. It delivers the most realistic destructible environments, amazing special effects such as dynamic fire propagation and storm effects, real-time night-and-day cycle, dynamic music system, non-scripted enemy A.I. and so much more.






At the lower resolutions we can see the HD 4890 and GTX 275 perform very similar. At 2560, though, we see the GTX 275 pull ahead and we're less than a single FPS away from that 30 FPS minimum we need.

Benchmarks - S.T.A.L.K.E.R. - Clear Sky

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. - Clear Sky

Version and / or Patch Used: 1.5.07
Timedemo or Level Used: Custom Timedemo
Developer Homepage: http://www.gsc-game.com/
Product Homepage: http://cs.stalker-game.com/en/
Buy It Here




S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky, is the stand-alone prequel for S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl, a first-person shooter computer game by Ukrainian developer GSC Game World.[3] The game consists of a roughly 50/50 mix of new areas and old, remodeled areas from the previous game. The X-ray graphics engine has been updated to version 1.5 and includes DirectX 10 support (later patch 1.5.06 included DirectX 10.1). Additionally, the AI received an overhaul to accommodate the new faction wars feature.





It doesn't come as any surprise that the ATI offering comes out ahead here with the game always favoring the ATI based graphics cards. Compared to the GTS 250 we can see the GTX 275 get's a good bump across the board.

Benchmarks - Left 4 Dead

Left 4 Dead

Version and / or Patch Used: Latest Steam Update
Timedemo or Level Used: Custom Timedemo
Developer Homepage: http://www.valvesoftware.com/
Product Homepage: http://www.l4d.com/
Buy It Here




Left 4 Dead uses the latest version of Valve's Source engine, with improvements such as multi-core processor support and physics-based animation to more realistically portray hair and clothing, and to improve physics interaction with enemies when shot or shoved in different body parts. Animation was also improved to allow characters to lean realistically when moving in curved paths.

Rendering and artificial intelligence were scaled up to allow for greater number of enemies who can navigate the world in better ways, such as climbing, jumping or breaking obstacles. Lighting has been enhanced with new self-shadowing normal mapping and advanced shadow rendering that is important to convey information about the environment and player actions.



Compared to the GTS 250 we get a good bump in performance under L4D. As for performance against the HD 4890 we can see that the cards sit quite close to each other.

Benchmarks - High Quality AA and AF

High Quality AA and AF

Our high quality tests let us separate the men from the boys and the ladies from the girls. If the cards weren't struggling before they will start to now.


Far Cry 2





While below that 30 FPS minimum we like, compared to the other two cards performance is way up with the GTX 275 from Palit.


World In Conflict





We're again just below that 30 FPS minimum we need, but performance on the GTX 275 when compared to the HD 4890 continues to be better.


Left 4 Dead



While the GTX 275 falls a little behind the HD 4890 here, there isn't a huge difference in performance.

Benchmarks - World in Conflict - XP

World in Conflict

Version and / or Patch Used: 1.0.0.5
Timedemo or Level Used: Built-in Test
Developer Homepage: http://www.massive.se
Product Homepage: http://www.worldinconflict.com




World in Conflict is a real-time strategy video game by Massive Entertainment and to be published by Sierra Entertainment for Windows (DX9 and DX10) and the Xbox 360.

The game is set in 1989 where economic troubles cripple the Soviet Union and threaten to dissolve it. However, the title pursues a "what if" scenario where, in this case, the Soviet Union does not collapse and instead pursues a course of war to remain in power. It is an intensive new game is sure to put plenty of stress on even the latest graphics cards and we use the built-in benchmarking for our testing.





Moving to XP we still see the GTX 275 from Palit perform well with that 30 FPS minimum again being seen at 2560 x 1600, while the HD 4890 sits miles away from it.

Benchmarks - Far Cry 2 - XP

Far Cry 2

Version and / or Patch Used: 1.01
Timedemo or Level Used: Ranch Long
Developer Homepage: http://www.ubi.com/
Product Homepage: http://www.farcry2.com/
Buy It Here




The Dunia Engine was built specifically for Far Cry 2 by the award-winning Ubisoft Montreal development team. It delivers the most realistic destructible environments, amazing special effects such as dynamic fire propagation and storm effects, real-time night-and-day cycle, dynamic music system, non-scripted enemy A.I. and so much more.






Under XP we see that NVIDIA cards tend to fall back a little compared to the other offerings. At the lower resolutions we see that the GTX 275 falls behind the HD 4890, while at the top end we see the GTX 275 is able to pull ahead.

Benchmarks - S.T.A.L.K.E.R. - Clear Sky - XP

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. - Clear Sky

Version and / or Patch Used: 1.5.07
Timedemo or Level Used: Custom Timedemo
Developer Homepage: http://www.gsc-game.com/
Product Homepage: http://cs.stalker-game.com/en/
Buy It Here




S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky, is the stand-alone prequel for S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl, a first-person shooter computer game by Ukrainian developer GSC Game World.[3] The game consists of a roughly 50/50 mix of new areas and old, remodeled areas from the previous game. The X-ray graphics engine has been updated to version 1.5 and includes DirectX 10 support (later patch 1.5.06 included DirectX 10.1). Additionally, the AI received an overhaul to accommodate the new faction wars feature.





We again see under Clear Sky the ATI offering comes out ahead thanks to the game taking advantage of ATI based graphics cards.

Temperature and Sound Tests

Temperature Tests



With the TES 1326 Infrared Thermometer literally in hand we found ourselves getting real-world temperatures from the products we test at load (3D clock speeds).

There are two places we pull temperature from - the back of the card directly behind the core and if the card is dual slot and has an exhaust point we also pull a temperate from there, as seen in the picture.




The big cooler does good things for temperatures with the GTX 275 from Palit giving us good numbers.


Sound Tests



Pulling out the TES 1350A Sound Level Meter we find ourselves quickly yelling into the top of it to see how loud we can be.

After five minutes of that we get a bit more serious and place the device two CM away from the fan on the card to find the maximum noise level of the card when idle (2D mode) and in load (3D mode).




While being louder than the GTS 250, the cooler that Palit has chosen does come in quieter than the stock cooler that the HD 4890 uses.

Power Consumption Tests

Using our new PROVA Power Analyzer WM-01 or "Power Thingy" as it has become quickly known as to our readers, we are now able to find out what kind of power is being used by our test system and the associated graphics cards installed. Keep in mind; it tests the complete system (minus LCD monitor, which is plugged directly into AC wall socket).

There are a few important notes to remember though; while our maximum power is taken in 3DMark06 at the same exact point, we have seen in particular tests the power being drawn as much as 10% more. We test at the exact same stage every time; therefore tests should be very consistent and accurate.

The other thing to remember is that our test system is bare minimum - only a 7,200RPM SATA-II single hard drive is used without CD ROM or many cooling fans.

So while the system might draw 400 watts in our test system, placing it into your own PC with a number of other items, the draw is going to be higher.




Power draw between the cards is pretty similar; idle for the NVIDIA cards are close while load sees the HD 4890 and GTX 275 pretty similar.

Final Thoughts

The Palit GTX 275 offers us everything we want out of a graphics card. We've got good performance at a pretty good price and when it comes to a graphics card for your system you really can't ask for much more than that.

It's not all pros, though; the limited bundle might be disappointing to some but we've really come to expect it from Palit and what it ultimately does for the product on a whole is keep the price down which is always a good thing for the consumer.

The good news is that Palit has also decided to mix it up in the cooling department; the even better news is that not only have they put on something that looks good, but it also manages to cool better than a stock one and give us less noise.

While the bundle might be a bit on the light side of things, we've got everything we need including handy connectors like the DVI to HDMI one and a loop back cable that helps get sound through it. We've also got a pretty competitive price point and a cooler that kicks butt. Along with that we've got that typical GTX 275 performance which is good for 1920 x 1200 and for the most part isn't too bad when it comes to 2560 x 1600 if you're willing to move from very high to high or medium settings.

If you're looking for a GTX 275 that carries a good cooler and you don't mind overclocking yourself, the GTX 275 from Palit here is a good option and if you can get your hands on it we highly recommend you think about it.