Thursday, April 10, 2008

Nvidia GeForce 9800 GTX Cards Reviewed

9800 gtxTom's Hardware, AnandTech, ExtremeTech, HardwareZone test the new Nvidia GeForce 9800 GTX graphics cards (US$299 - 349).

GeForce 9800 GTX Baseline Specs:

  • G92 Core Code
  • 65nm manufacturing process
  • 675MHz Core Code
  • 128 Stream Processors
  • 1688MHz Stream Processor Clock
  • 2200MHz GDDR3 Memory Clock
  • 256-bit DDR Memory Bus
  • 70.4GB/s Memory Bandwidth
  • PCIe ver 2.0 x16 interface
  • SLI Multi GPU technology

Tom's Hardware put the Point Of View 9800 GTX on its paces:

"A card that's almost as fast as the 8800 Ultra at a much lower price is a good thing. ... Performance close to that of the 8800 Ultra at half the price / Support for HybridPower (with compatible motherboards) - Noisy under load / Only 512 MB of memory / Not different enough from the 8800 GTS 512 MB, 8800 GTX and Ultra, although they're previous-generation cards and often less expensive." [Tom's Hardware]

AnandTech took a close look at the EVGA 9800 GTX:

"It is nice to have this card come in at the $300 price point with decent performance, but the most exciting thing about it is the fact that picking up two of them will give you better performance than a single 9800 GX2 for the same amount of money. Two of them can even start to get by in Crysis with Very High settings (though it might offer a better experience with one or two features turned down a bit)." [AnandTech]

ExtremeTech tested the XFX GeForce 9800 GTX card, and gave it a 6 out of 10:

"... Nvidia offers a card that is very nearly the same thing, is an inch and a half shorter, is less expensive, and performs almost just as well: the GeForce 8800 GTS 512. ... There are differences, of course. The GeForce 9800 GTX is your only option if you want to run triple-SLI, unless you're happy to use the more dated 8800 GTX or Ultra. It also allows you to use HybridPower if you happen to have one of the newer Nvidia chipset motherboards that support it, but the BIOS and drivers to enable HybridPower are not yet available for us to test. It's hard to give this card a thumbs up on its HybridPower capabilities when we don't know how well that feature will work. " [ExtremeTech]

HardwareZone reviewed cards from Asus, Leadtek, and Zotac, and gave each a rating of 4 Stars:

"For those of you willing to go ahead to spend more for the latest in technology, want the fastest single new single GPU graphics card out there and don't mind venturing into 3-way SLI, the GeForce 9800 GTX is a reasonable choice. ... Though we don't expect custom/special edition cards on this high-end range, if you have the patience, you can hold out for a while to see if any news on them surfaces before making any decisions." [HardwareZone]

The 9800 GTX is a nice US$300 graphics card solution if you have been eyeing the 8800 Ultra. A bonus is that it will run in 3-way SLI mode on newer Nvidia chipset motherboards.

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