The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 295 is the second big product launch of the day and, as one might expect, reviews are popping up everywhere. The first impressions can be found on Bit-Tech, HotHardware, Overclockers Club, PC Perspective, TechARP and TweakTown:

Much like in the preview of the GTX 295 its performance on the I7 platform is just phenomenal. It far outstrips the performance of the HD4870x2 and Core I7. The performance is so far superior in all but two benchmarks that it just makes sense to go with the GTX 295. One thing that I had concerns about but could not speak about in the preview was the temperatures that the GTX 295 delivered under load. Sandwiching two GT 200 GPUs on a dual slot cooling solution could be a recipe for disaster but Nvidia has pulled off the cooling of the GTX 295 using a heatpipe based solution. Under load with the drivers manually controlling the fan the temperatures never got out of hand at 74 Celsius. When the fan speeds are manually controlled the temperatures were even better at 65 Celsius. Price wise the GTX 295 and HD4870x2 are swimming in the same pond and are in the $500 range. But couple in the superior performance and cost really does not become a concern. If you absolutely want the best card out then the GTX 295 is it when running the latest games. Its only weakness is the 3Dmark 06 testing. This could be remedied with something as simple as a driver update. Couple this card with a second GTX 295 and Nvidia's 3D Vision and you have a gaming rig that just wont be topped. I never thought that one card could provide this level of performance.