GeForce 9800 GTX and 3-way SLI: May the nForce Be With You
by Derek Wilson on April 1, 2008 9:00 AM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
The 9800 GTX and EVGA’s Cards
The 9800 GTX is a 128 shader, G92 based card (yes, another one) that comes in at 675MHz core, 1.69GHz shader clock, and 2.2GHz (effective) memory clock. This puts the raw power of the card up over the 8800 Ultra, but there is one major drawback to this high end part: it only has a 256-bit memory bus hooked up to 512MB of RAM.
The added memory might not come into play a lot, but the fact that the 8800 Ultra has essentially 50% more effective memory bandwidth does put it at an advantage in memory performance limited situations. This means there is potential for performance loss at high resolutions, high levels of AA, or in games with memory intensive effects. While we get that $300 US puts this card in a different class than the 8800 Ultra, and thus NVIDIA is targeting a different type of user, we would have liked to see a card with more bandwidth and more memory (especially when we look at the drop off in performance between Crysis at 19x12 and 25x16).
9800 GTX cards are capable of 3-way SLI with the two SLI connectors on the top. Of course, NVIDIA requires that we use an NVIDIA motherboard for this purpose. We are not fans of artificial technical limitations based on marketing needs and would much prefer to see SLI run on any platform that enables multiple PCIe x16 slots. With normal SLI, we do have the Skulltrail option, but NVIDIA has chosen not to enable 3-way capability on this board either.
We wanted to be able to include 3-way SLI numbers in our launch review (which has been one incredible headache, but more on that later), and EVGA was kind enough to help us out by providing the hardware. We certainly appreciate them enabling us to bring you numbers for this configuration today.
We were also able to get our hands on a C0 engineering sample 790i board for testing. Let’s just say that the experience was … character building. Running a QX9770 and 1333Mhz DDR3 at 9:9:9:24, we had what could best be described as a very rough time getting 3-way and even quad SLI with two 9800 GX2 boards to work in this system. We were lucky to get the numbers we did get. Let’s take a look at what we tested with
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
49 Comments
View All Comments
7Enigma - Tuesday, April 1, 2008 - link
NM, the images now show up that include the 8800GT. Thanks! So it seems the 9800GTX in most situations is <20% faster than the 8800GT at 1280X1024 correct? Since I game on a 19" LCD I might be better off with an 8800GT for a year or so and then upgrading to the next round of cards.....decisions....decisions....For anyone that cares here's a direct comparison using the numbers from the table:
9800GTX compared to 8800GT at 1280X1024 resolution
Crysis.....19.5% faster
CoD4.......17.5-18.5% faster (depending on no/4X AA)
Oblivion...17.5-27% faster (depending on no/4X AA)
QuakeW.....10.5% faster
Stalker....13% faster
just4U - Tuesday, April 1, 2008 - link
So it's roughly 2% faster then the GTS/512? :(7Enigma - Tuesday, April 1, 2008 - link
Again I'm disappointed that this review completely fails to include the 8800GTS. I asked in the previous 9800GX2 review as did several others and there was no response to the questions. It definitely appears that they are purposely failing to include the most obvious competitor to the 9800GTX (and any future lower-end cards, GTS, GT, etc.).Looks like I'll be going to another site for a better comparison.
7Enigma - Tuesday, April 1, 2008 - link
Hocp has a good comparison review (albeit with their odd way of benchmarking) of the 8800GTX/S against the 9800GTX. Pretty much shows what we thought, some slight improvements, but nothing to write home about. This quote from the conclusion sums up the release of the 9800GTX:"If you are a gamer and were hoping to upgrade, today is not the day if you already own pretty much any 8800 series card. Here’s hoping real next-gen technology will be seen in a “9900” series soon."
This pretty much solidifies my purchase of an 8800GT. I just can't see the advantage of shelling out closer to $300 for a slightly better card than a $200 8800GT, with the hopes that within a year SOMEONE comes to the rescue of actually releasing a next gen card that is better than the current/previous generation.
AggressorPrime - Tuesday, April 1, 2008 - link
I'm pretty sure dual, tri, and quad Crossfire is not supposed to give the exact same results in Crysis. There must be something wrong with the chart.AggressorPrime - Tuesday, April 1, 2008 - link
It looks like these tests are done with the 790i, yet there is no info on what RAM is used or motherboard for that matter in the chart.It is interesting that a 790i setup would beat Skulltrail in Crysis, but I guess fast RAM is more important.
Noya - Tuesday, April 1, 2008 - link
...the best bang for the buck is a pair of 8800gt in SLI @ about $350.KingViper - Tuesday, April 1, 2008 - link
Can we get a spell check in the house?jtleon - Tuesday, April 1, 2008 - link
DittoDittoDittoIjusthateitwhenwebcontentisnotedited!!!!Regardsjtleon
JarredWalton - Tuesday, April 1, 2008 - link
Fixed.