The ZOTAC GeForce GTX 275 Won’t Be Left 4 Dead…
Left4Dead isn’t exactly a state of the art game engine, but the video card’s resources get pushed to its limits in those hair raising subway crash scenes when adding a mob of zombies and some burning rail cars. Either way, the benchmark shows the effects of the GTX 280s video memory beating the GTX 275 by a mere two frames. You can pretty much expect the same from other games using the same engine. Left4Dead is also a heckuva lot of fun so why not include them to make a benchmarking session more enjoyable?
Final Thoughts
Comparing results of the ZOTAC GeForce GTX 280 show that the average frame rates of the ZOTAC GeForce GTX 275 show the two cards being very close in performance. The GTX 275 is far from being an underperformer. In many instances, the GTX 275 is within just a few frames even with a slightly lower amount of video memory. This is no doubt a result of the higher clock, core, and memory frequencies used to access the 896MB of video memory.
Under a 1920 x 1200 resolution, game play continues to move pretty smoothly through most if not all benchmarks thrown at it. The same is results are achieved even with 4X AF and 16X AA enabled in the drivers and video games. The GPU does a pretty effecient job of producing 40+ frame per second averages throughout the volley of benchmarks. This is probably the card’s sweet spot when it comes to extreme gaming. Fan noise is almost non-existent and maintains a relatively quiet (19db) during maximum use. This is partially due to the lower heat produced by the new 55nm core.
The area that the ZOTAC GeForce GTX 275 896MB Video Card stands out in is the price tag. While the ZOTAC GeForce GTX 280 (as well as many of it’s other GTX 280 brethren) carries a $330 US premium price tag, the ZOTAC GeForce GTX 275 will only set you back a measly $249 US. This price difference is a real game changer when searching for a GTX 2xx level video card. Couple that with the fact it requires less power than its sibling and it makes it a very tantalizing choice indeed.
Clearly, the lower amount of memory doesn’t hold it back. In fact, I’d call it a non issue in our test. With such great performance, I enthusiastically declare this the new elite budget gamer’s video card of choice.
Pros
- Improved power consumption
- Respectable frame rates
- Very low fan noise
- Has some overclocking headroom
- Good cost to performance ratio
- 896MB of fast DDR3 448 bit memory
Cons
- The huge black fan shroud is getting old
- Needs something that separates it from the rest of the pack
Overall Rating: 9.0 / 10.0
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