9800 GTX Reviews Thread

[Wreckage]

Originally posted by: batmang

ATi isn't losing THAT bad. They just need more cards in certain ranges. The 3870X2 is still a good buy IMO. It performs well for what your paying. I'm hoping their new cards bring the competition back.

The 9800GTX provides as good or better performance than the 3870X2. Plus it's cheaper and is not crippled by Crossfire.

 

[batmang]

Originally posted by: Wreckage

Originally posted by: batmang

ATi isn't losing THAT bad. They just need more cards in certain ranges. The 3870X2 is still a good buy IMO. It performs well for what your paying. I'm hoping their new cards bring the competition back.

The 9800GTX provides as good or better performance than the 3870X2. Plus it's cheaper and is not crippled by Crossfire.

And its basically a 8800GTX so I wouldn't go calling it awesome new technology.. because its not. NVidia is milking it. I will say that they are being smart about it. They are making ATi look like a horrible graphics card choice. But the truth is, ATi has been selling their 3870's at awesome pricing since day one. They were already 10-15% slower, but were less than 10-15% in price, which made the cards worth the money. The 9800GTX is worth $329 no doubt, it should cost more IMO. But all NVidia is doing is making sure ATi remains 2nd place and stays their. ATi will eventually release cards that will trump the 9800 series, I know they will. I'm just interested in what NVidia brings out next time around. The 9800 line up is just an improved 8800 series. Theres nothing wrong with that, I just know that myself and everyone else on these forums is interested in the real NEXT GEN cards from NVidia. I want 60FPS in Crysis DAMMIT!

 

[BlizzardOne]

Originally posted by: chizowI'd also like to see a possible 1GB version to see if it helps close the gap with the Ultra at higher resolutions.

I imagine it would help, but the near 50% bandwidth advantage of the Ultra will still make a significant difference.

I've also noticed that G92 has 16 ROPs, compared to 24 in the full blown G80, but virtually none of the reviews have picked up on this. Is it that insignificant, or could this be a further contributing factor (along with bandwidth and framebuffer) to explain the 9800GTX and GX2 cards tanking in 2560x1600 w/ AA/AF scenarios?

 

[Wreckage]

Originally posted by: batmang

And its basically a 8800GTX so I wouldn't go calling it awesome new technology.. because its not. NVidia is milking it. I will say that they are being smart about it. They are making ATi look like a horrible graphics card choice.

Well nobody said it was awesome new technology. This is no different than the 7xxx series. Which was just a polished 6xxx series. Not to mention other than the sloppy code pig "Crysis" no game really stresses the 9800GTX so what need is there for a new uber card? Unless you want to shell out $600.

But the truth is, ATi has been selling their 3870's at awesome pricing since day one. They were already 10-15% slower, but were less than 10-15% in price, which made the cards worth the money.

The 3870 standard is slower than a 9600GT which is generally less expensive.

The 9800GTX is worth $329 no doubt, it should cost more IMO. But all NVidia is doing is making sure ATi remains 2nd place and stays their. ATi will eventually release cards that will trump the 9800 series, I know they will. I'm just interested in what NVidia brings out next time around. The 9800 line up is just an improved 8800 series. Theres nothing wrong with that, I just know that myself and everyone else on these forums is interested in the real NEXT GEN cards from NVidia. I want 60FPS in Crysis DAMMIT!

Well if ATI's next big release is still based off the R600 then they will be in trouble. Well more trouble.

 

[golem]

My disappointment is in Nvidia is not willing to release something worth due to its competition. I don't want to see the GPU cycle to turn in to small incremental cycle like we do with CPU industry. All you need to see how Intel revolutionary idea of going Northwood to prescott was so flawed that they didn't even understood it until , they actually started to loose some market share.

Your Intel/AMD analogy doesn't make sense. Intel was behind at that time and would have loved to release a faster than AMD part if they had one. Nvidia is ahead right now, and is basically coasting because of lack of competition.

It would make more sense to be disappointed in AMD for not releasing a better part to increase competition than it would for you to be disappointed in Nvidia for not releasing a better part to compete with their own parts.

 

[lopri]

Originally posted by: tuteja1986

My disappointment is in Nvidia is not willing to release something worth due to its competition...

I used to think that way, but I now start to wonder if it's the case that NV is not able to release something better. At high-end NV is competing with itself right now, and let's get real - if NV had a revolutionary chip like G80, they would release it and price it for $600+. And unlike 9800GX2, that card would actully sell. There are plenty of folks who purchased 8800s and want something better.

 

[YabbyU]

Got the 9800GTX coming and i must say it's quite a relief to finally have my parts on the way...Almost got the 9800GX2 but I think the 9800GTX is priced right for the performance.

EVGA 780i
9800GTX
4gigs Geil PC2-6400
E8400 OEM
Rosewill cpu cooler

Bought all the rest case, HD, PS etc back in November, now just please be here by Friday so I decide which game I'm going bust it's cherry with......

 

[crisium]

It's a good card for the price. I'll agree to that. There are just three problems: 1)It is Q2 2008 2) It's called the 9800GTX 3)Memory

1)Shouldn't more than 5-7% performance increase be gained since Q4 2006?

2)9800GTX? Really? Wouldn't a 8900GTX be more fitting? That fits more in line with the performance. Not to mention...

3)256-bit and 512mb. Less than the 8800GTX and Ultra. This is probably the main reason why the 8800 Ultra still outperforms it in some cases. Hmm.

Would you buy a 7800GTX to upgrade your 6800 Ultra? Yeah, it gives you good improvement. 8800GTX to upgrade your 7800GTX, or even your 7900GTX? Hell yeah. You'd get improvements. Would you buy an 9800GTX to upgrade your 8800GTX? No, probably not. How about to upgrade your 8800 Ultra? No, it's sometimes slower actually.

Now, they did price it reasonably, so it does fit into the market. But people already at the high end, who have been there for more than a year, still have no single-GPU card worth upgrading to. The naming complaints is more annoying than a real issue, since you should buy on performance not on whatever has the most 9s and Xs in the name, but it still just doesn't fit with what is the norm from the company.

 

[CP5670]

As I've said before, this card is not bad for a midrange solution (apart from being too similar to the 8800GTS 512) and is priced accordingly. The problem is that there is nothing high end to go along with it.

I'm not interested in anything G80/G92 based at this point in time, and will just stick to older games until they release a true next gen card. I have no shortage of them at all.

 

[chizow]

Originally posted by: BlizzardOne

Originally posted by: chizowI'd also like to see a possible 1GB version to see if it helps close the gap with the Ultra at higher resolutions.

I imagine it would help, but the near 50% bandwidth advantage of the Ultra will still make a significant difference.

I've also noticed that G92 has 16 ROPs, compared to 24 in the full blown G80, but virtually none of the reviews have picked up on this. Is it that insignificant, or could this be a further contributing factor (along with bandwidth and framebuffer) to explain the 9800GTX and GX2 cards tanking in 2560x1600 w/ AA/AF scenarios?

Yes, completely true with the additional bandwidth, which was shown to hinder other G92 parts. But the older G80 parts weren't bandwidth limited from what I had seen on a GTS and GTX, with core increases yielding impressive performance gains and memory clock increases boosting performance very little. With the G92, core increases helped but so did memory, only early G92 runs tended to have memory that capped out ~1000MHz. The 9800GTX removes that bottleneck all while promising improved core performance. Basically I feel G80 had too much bandwidth and G92 not enough. Unfortunately going from a 256-bit to 384-bit bus with similar memory speeds gives you a big "multiplier" in CPU overclocking terms and a big variance there. I'm hoping the faster memory on the GTX helps close the gap between not enough and enough to unleash the G92.

I also completely agree with the ROP difference and to most reviewer's credit they did make note of the difference in earlier G92 GT and GTS reviews. I don't think they've emphasized the point enough but there's also significant evidence that bandwidth and amount of memory contributes to G92's shortcomings at higher resolutions as much or more than number of ROPs. Unfortunately, it seems ROPs and # of memory controllers are tied so we'll never fully know which is the greater bottleneck. The 9800GTX should shed some light on that with faster RAM and higher OC'ing headroom and if a 1GB version comes out, that should answer even more questions. It'll basically isolate ROPs as the only remaining bottleneck, as I think there's little doubt that a 24 ROP, 800MHz core, 384-bit 784MB G92 would blow the doors off the Ultra.

 

[bdubyah]

what kind of power supply does this thing require? it needs 2 PCIE connectors right?

 

[Piuc2020]

Originally posted by: bsix
Wow Just checked prices for 8800 GTS - was waiting for prices to go down. They went up from 6:00am est this morning. The MSI 8800GTS (G92) was $209 AR this morning and it is now $239. The eVGA 8800GTS was $229 and is now $279. Should have bought yesterday knowing that the 9800GTX was a marketing release only.

PS Holy Crap - even the 8800GT jumped heavily. The MSI was $179 AR and is now $209 and a Palit which was $189 is now $239. Wow.

More than jump heavily NE stopped advertising the rebates, prices are the same and $209 for a 8800GT is a great price, the rebate money came in like 1-2 months after anyways so it was pretty pointless.

 

[ShadowOfMyself]

April 1st was the perfect day for this, considering the card is a joke

 

[Piuc2020]

At $330 it's not such a big joke considering you can SLI them for $660, overclock the **** out of them and play Crysis at Very High 1920x1200. And prices are only going to come down.

So consider inexpensive SLI the new generation of performance.

 

[Tempered81]

man 9800gtx sli is sometimes slower than 8800 ultra sli. ugh what gives?

 

[JACKDRUID]

Originally posted by: ShadowOfMyself
April 1st was the perfect day for this, considering the card is a joke

<snip>

Please do not bait other members
-ViRGE

 

[Tempered81]

Originally posted by: ShadowOfMyself
April 1st was the perfect day for this, considering the card is a joke

agree 100%

on a side note, I can't wait to get a 9800gtx, quad core, 16gb of ddr3, vista 64, and some other neat stuff to play crysis at its full potential. I'm a bit tired of my pet rock.

 

[Obsoleet]

Originally posted by: jaredpace

Originally posted by: ShadowOfMyself
April 1st was the perfect day for this, considering the card is a joke

agree 100%

on a side note, I can't wait to get a 9800gtx, quad core, 16gb of ddr3, vista 64, and some other neat stuff to play crysis at its full potential. I'm a bit tired of my pet rock.

ROFL

 

[ArchAngel777]

Originally posted by: BFG10K
From Tom's Hardware:

Surprise!? The effective cooling of the GeForce 9800 GTX' G92 GPU comes at the price of a high noise level. While the fan used is the same one as on the 8800 GTS 512 MB, its rotation speed is much higher - at idle as well as under load. Only the HD 3870 X2 took the booby prize for being noisier under load. But it was even quieter at idle - roughly equivalent to the 8800 GTS - which the 9800 GTX should have matched. In practice, its noise wasn't all that bad at idle, but the fan accelerates very fast as soon as you launch a game, and sometimes even when idling, and the noise level becomes frankly obnoxious.

And what's really funny is that Nvidia actually makes a point of saying that this card is extremely quiet, even during gameplay. The marketing department usually simply keeps its mouth shut about a product's negative points, instead of calling attention to them - especially when the fault is this flagrant.

I love it how they blast vendors over noise issues. I like these guys. :thumbsup:

I like Tom's Hardware quite a bit, but sometimes their testing isn't up to par, IMO. I really like their interfactive database of CPU, GPU & Hard Drive performance. I wish AT did something like that as I believe their testing is better controlled.

 

[Munky]

Originally posted by: jaredpace
man 9800gtx sli is sometimes slower than 8800 ultra sli. ugh what gives?

The 9800gtx has less memory bandwidth and less video memory than the 8800u. At high resolutions, where you really need sli, those limitations become increasingly more dominant.

 

[Keysplayr]

Originally posted by: bdubyah
what kind of power supply does this thing require? it needs 2 PCIE connectors right?

9800GTX requires 2x 6pin PCI-e power connectors. A quality 500W to 550W should be fine for a single GTX.

 

[Sable]

I know I've said this before but they really should have called it the 8900GTX. In fact it barely qualifies for that name, it's more like an ultra+ or something.

 

[Extelleron]

Originally posted by: JACKDRUID

Originally posted by: ShadowOfMyself
April 1st was the perfect day for this, considering the card is a joke

<snip>

He's 100% right. The 9800GTX is an absolute joke; it can't even perform the 8800GTX half of the time and at 2560x1600, it is useless.

nVidia just isn't executing well in 2008. The 9800GX2 wasn't bad but it is not a solution for the 2560x1600 gamer, and Quad SLI is horrible at high resolutions where it is needed. The 9800GTX is barely faster than the 8800GTS 512MB with a much higher pricetag and it is outperformed by the 8800GTX where performance matters. A lot of people want to call this the 8900GTX, IMO it's not even worthy of that name since it's not faster than the 8800GTX.

At this point R700 and GT200 are the only things interesting. And after two years of the same junk, GT200 had better be good.

 

[Billyzeke]

Where does the soon to be released 9800gt fit in all this? Are they just going to replace the 8800gt with it and maybe up the clocks a tad? I just dont see the point of it other than tri sli, and how many people actually do that?

 

[Blacklash]

I've owned a 8800GTX since their release and this card is certainly not a reason to "upgrade". I am not interested in SLi, and if I were I'd just grab another 8800GTX.

The card I have now is running @ 661|2040 1601.

Maybe when the real next gen is out well finally see a card from nVidia with a 512 interface and 1Gb ram. I'd like to see something on the order of; 800 core, 1800 shader, 512 interface and 1Gb ram.