The launch of Nvidia’s GeForce 200 architecture was far from successful. Having focused on developing the world’s most complex and highest-performing monolithic graphics core, Nvidia seemed to lose when ATI responded to the G200 with its simpler and much cheaper RV770 processor. G200-based solutions, already expensive due to their complexity, proved to be totally unprofitable when Nvidia had to cut their prices in order to make them competitive. In fact, even that price cut didn’t affect the appeal of those products much. A chip consisting of about 1.5 billion transistors and manufactured on 65nm tech process just could not work at high frequencies. The senior model of the new series barely reached GPU clock rates of 600/1300MHz. The junior model was even slower and could not compete with the Radeon HD 4870 in terms of performance as well as price.

But as time went by, Nvidia was steadily correcting its errors. First of all, the company increased the performance of the junior GeForce GTX 260 by unlocking some of the GPU’s functional subunits. As a result, the card got a longer name by adding “Core 216” and got competitive against the ATI Radeon HD 4870. Later on, this very model became the first to use the new 55nm version of the G200 core together with a new, greatly simplified and cheaper-to-make design of the PCB. That was most important for G200-based solutions that had been under high pressure from ATI. The GeForce GTX 285 was simplified, too. Thanks to the improved tech process, the G200b chip boasted increased overclocking potential, making the successor to the GeForce GTX 280 competitive to the ATI Radeon HD 4850 X2 across many applications. Besides, the 55nm G200 chip helped Nvidia strike back in the sector of premium dual-processor solutions. Announced on January 8, 2009, the GeForce GTX 295 dethroned the ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2 indeed.

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