TestBed

Motherboard: MSI P45D3 Platinum ( Provided by: MSI );
Processor: Intel Core 2 QX9770 Extreme edition at 3.6GHz ( Provided by: Intel );
Memory: Corsair Dominator 12800 7-7-7-24 ( Provided by: Corsair);
HDD: WD VelociRaptor 300G 10,000RPM ( Provided by: SmoothCreation );
Eheim water pumpHPPS 12V;


Futuremark Tests

3DMark06 is the only test that doesn’t do the GTX 295 HydroCopper justice, but note that synthetic tests are rarely a measure of the actual power. However, the following synthetic tests still show who’s the boss.







The toughest Vantage Extreme test sees the GTX 295 HydroCopper score 10845 points, which is almost 19% better than the reference GTX 295 or impressive 47% better than the HD 4870 X2 card. We think words are wasted, and it’s best if you looked at the results yourself.




Gaming

World in Conflict

GTX 295 HydroCopper is a card best combined with a 30’’ monitor, so the 2560x1600 resolution shows this card’s true colors.















In World in Conflict, the high 2560x1600 resolution where most graphics card choke, the GTX 295 HydroCopper scores 69fps and 51fps with antialiasing. It beats the HD4870 X2 by up to 30%, and the reference GTX 295 by up to 15%.





Far Cry 2

FarCry 2 shows that EVGA managed to give its card a 16% advantage over the reference GTX 295 and up to 28% advantage over the HD 4870 X2om.



















Left 4 Dead

We’ll skip resolutions lower than 2560x1600, since the GTX 295 HydroCopper’s muscle seems to be CPU-limited, but the highest resolution again shows that this card is a true speed daemon. The reference GTX 295 is 18% slower (18fps) whereas the HD 4870 X2 is 42% slower (36fps).


















Conclusion

The results we’ve seen today were almost unimaginable a few months ago, but EVGA made this a reality with its GTX 295 HydroCopper graphics card. Unlike the reference card with its 576MHz core, EVGA’s GTX 295 HydroCopper runs at 720MHz core, 1548MHz shader and 1080MHz (2160MHz effectively) memory clocks.

The card’s name shows that the reference cooling has been replaced with water block cooling. Although the card is overclocked to 720MHz, the temperatures are cooler than reference, and hit 57° under a workload and 35°C in idle mode. Also, we could’ve easily pushed the card to 745MHz, but we decided against it since it has already rightfully claimed its throne.

This is the first card that can get you to 59.07 FPS at Far Cry 2 at 2560x1600 with 4X FSAA and game AA enabled. It is not 60 but it is close enough and in most of games and benchmarks, EVGA water card is 10 to even 20 percent faster, which is a lot of performance. 

However, don’t expect this card to be cheap as it will set you back more than 700 euros, but note that the GTX 280 was introduced at a similar price point, and has proven to be a nice seller. One thing is for certain – the GTX 295 HydroCopper is the fastest card money can currently buy, and to say that this card is just fast would be a severe understatement. Since this is undoubtfully the fastest card, we've ever tried, it was an easy decision to recommend it.