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GeForce GTX 275 Video Card Review

Author: William West

The GeForce GTX 275 we are looking at here is a pure reference design that is very similar to the GeForce GTX 260. Nvidia’s product partners have been encouraged to make their own designs this time around so with any luck we’ll see a variety of different, new and exciting GeForce GTX 275 designs.

Our card does stray away from the GeForce GTX 260 design by with not having a back plate on the card. Keep in mind this is only a reference so who knows what the partners have planned in this area.

The GeForce GTX 275 reference has 2 Dual Link DVI output ports. You can also use a HDMI converter with the ability to have sound pass through. Plus the ability to us the old analog converter is there to for those old CRT monitors. 

The GeForce GTX 275 is 16x PCI-Express 2.0 compliant and is completely backward compatible with older 16x PCI-Express slots and does just fine is 8x mode as found on older SLI motherboards. NVidia has everyone covered here.

In terms of power the GeForce GTX 275 peaks at 219Watts under full load which means it needs more than just the PCI-Express slot power. This is the reasoning for having two 6 pin power connectors on the side. You’ll find the HDMI audio pass through next to the power ports.

SLI is all the rage and for good reason. You can push more frames in your games and use some of the extra power for PhysX. The GeForce GTX 275 can be run in dual or triple card SLI configurations with the 2 bridge connectors seen here.

Since this a reference card and not going to be the exact model that most of the card vendors are going to be selling. We have to look at the heatsink assembly very lightly since most partners will change this to an aftermarket type cooling. 

Using pretty much the same cooler and mount setups as the reference GeForce GTX 260. The GeForce GTX 275 cooling is nothing really new on the scene. The fan is a variation of the popular squirrel cage fan that is slightly larger than most graphic card coolers in this price range. The angle of the fan helps to promote better cooling in an SLI setups thus allowing it to breathe from above and below the visible fan.