
VR-Zone checks out the GTX 285, a slightly higher clocked version of the GTX 280. Just how much difference can a dieshrink make to this 1.4 billion transistor monster of a GPU?
Eager to improve on the (now discontinued) GTX 280, Nvidia did the obvious thing and sent the GT200 GPU for a die shrink. The result is the GeForce GTX 285, which is essentially a higher clocked GTX 280.

Nvidia GeForce GTX 295 | Nvidia GeForce GTX 285 | Nvidia GeForce GTX 280 | Nvidia GeForce GTX 260 Core 216 | ATI Radeon HD4870 X2 | ATI Radeon HD4870 1GB | |
GPU | 2x GT200b | GT200b | GT200 | GT200/GT200b | R700 XT | R700 |
Process (nm) | 55 | 55 | 65 | 65/55 | 55 | |
Core Clock (Mhz) | 576 | 648 | 620 | 576 | 750 | 750 |
Shader Clock (Mhz) | 1242 | 1476 | 1296 | 1242 | 750 | 750 |
Memory Clock (Mhz)* | 999 | 1242 | 1107 | 999 | 900 | 900 |
Memory Size (MB) |
1792 (2x 896) |
1024 | 1024 | 896 | 2048 (2x 1024) |
1024 |
Memory Type | GDDR3 | GDDR3 | GDDR3 | GDDR3 | GDDR5 | GDDR5 |
Unified Shaders/ Stream Processors | 480 (2x 240) |
240 | 240 | 216 | 800 | 800 |
Texture Mapping Units | 160 (2x 80) | 80 | 80 | 74 | 80 (2x 40) | 40 |
Raster Operation Units | 56 (2x 28) | 32 | 32 | 28 | 32 (2x 16) | 32 |
Memory Interface (bits) |
896 (2x 448) |
512 | 512 | 448 | 512 (2x 256) |
256 |
Outputs (on reference design) | 2x Dual-Link DVI 1x HDMI |
2x Dual-Link DVI TV-Out |
2x Dual-Link DVI TV-Out |
2x Dual-Link DVI TV-Out |
2x Dual-Link DVI TV-Out |
2 |
Power Connectors | 1x 6-pin, 1x 8-pin | 2x 6-pin | 1x 6-pin, 1x 8-pin | 2x 6-pin | 1x 6-pin, 1x 8-pin | 2x 6-pin |
Thermal Design Power (w) | 289 | 183 | 236 | 182 | 286 | 150 |
Estimated Retail Price (USD) | 499 | 399 | – | 289 | 449 |
*Effective clock, or transfers/second, is twice the stated speed for GDDR3 and four times the stated speed for GDDR5.
The GTX 285 we’re using in this review is Asus’ TOP model, which uses the reference heatsink but is factory-overclocked. For the purposes of this article however we’ll be
downclocking the card to reference speeds and treating it as a reference GTX 285.