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UK availability

NVIDIA has been on the charge this past fortnight with a pair of graphics cards that lead the way in terms of performance. Last week it was the GeForce GTX 295, a £400 heavyweight that stands alone as the fastest single-board graphics card in the world.

This week it's the GeForce GTX 285, NVIDIA's second 55nm part and one that takes the crown of fastest single-GPU graphics card. Despite its performance credentials, though, the card launched yesterday with a whopping-great asking price of around £315 for a stock-clocked model.

Fast it may be, but when a similar-performance Radeon HD 4850 X2 can be had for just £260, we found the latest-greatest GeForce very tough to recommend. Echoing our thoughts, HEXUS.community member sleepyhead added "at that cost, you may as well go the whole hog and get a GTX295".

Furthermore, with performance leadership back in its grasp, NVIDIA's new high-end pricing has somehow inadvertently made rival AMD offerings appear to be very good value for money.

Inflated launch-day prices for the GeForce GTX 295 are slowly-but-surely being eradicated, now let's take a look at GeForce GTX 285 pricing and availability some 24 hours after launch. Here's our summary:

UK Market
etailer	Product	Availability	Price (inc. VAT)
SCAN.co.uk	GIGABYTE GeForce GTX 285	In stock	£321.17
	ASUS GeForce GTX 285	In stock	£332.67
	EVGA GeForce GTX 285	In stock	£332.67
	BFG GeForce GTX 285 OC	In stock	£332.67
	XFX GeForce GTX 285	In stock	£344.17
	EVGA GeForce GTX 285 SC	Pre-order	£355.67
	BFG GeForce GTX 285 OC2	Pre-order	£355.67
	XFX GeForce GTX 285 XXX	In stock	£367.17
	XFX GeForce GTX 285 Black Edition	Pre-order	£367.36
	EVGA GeForce GTX 285 SSC	Pre-order	£369.15
	BFG GeForce GTX 285 OCX	Pre-order	£378.67
As always, UK-based HEXUS.community discussion forum members will benefit from the SCAN2HEXUS Free Shipping initiative, which will save you a further few pounds plus also top-notch, priority customer service and technical support backed up by the SCANcare@HEXUS forum.
dabs.com	GIGABYTE GeForce GTX 285	In stock	£315.98
	XFX GeForce GTX 285	Pre-order	£306.99
	XFX GeForce GTX 285 Black Edition	Pre-order	£355.99
	XFX GeForce GTX 285 XXX	Pre-order	£323.98
ebuyer.com	ZOTAC GeForce GTX 285	In stock	£294.99
	ASUS GeForce GTX 285	In stock	£329.99

Availability, then, is fairly widespread with generous availability from the likes of Scan, Dabs and Ebuyer.

From the three aforementioned etailers, the cheapest in-stock offering is Zotac's GeForce GTX 285, available from Ebuyer.com at a cost of £294.99. Readers should note, however, that the lowest GeForce GTX 285 price is still some £20 more than a pre-overclocked GeForce GTX 280 - a card that's likely to offer similar performance.

Overclocked models range in price from around £320 all the way up to the dizzy heights of £380. Far too close to the performance-leading GeForce GTX 295, and making very little sense, we feel.

While availability looks good, and prices appear to be edging down to £300 or less, it remains hard to ignore the cheaper alternatives - namely the Radeon HD 4850 X2 for £260 and the overclocked GeForce GTX 280 for £275.

Moving on, how about pricing in the rest of Europe and the US? Head on over to Page 2 for an up-to-date comparison.

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