# Zotac GeForce 9800 GTX



## W1zzard (Mar 31, 2008)

Today NVIDIA launches their new GeForce 9800 GTX cards. Like many products in the GeForce 8 Series they are based on the G92 graphics processor. This is also the reason why there are no real technological innovations on this $299 card.

*Show full review*


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## PyroX1040 (Apr 1, 2008)

$329 USD + Shipping on Newegg >.> Not $299.99!


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## Hawk1 (Apr 1, 2008)

Excellent review, as always W1zz. You have 2 8800GTX's listed for idle in power consump., so one of them s/b the 9800 I think.

Edit: Also, dont forget to DIGG people!


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## DOM (Apr 1, 2008)

W1zzard you know that cat 8.3 isnt the best driver for 3DMark 8.2 is cuz for you old cpu you got 10k on the 3870X2 now its 9K with the E8400 @ 3.6  nice review


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## EastCoasthandle (Apr 1, 2008)

what is 3dmark 8.2??

In any case, W1z do you know if this card can be over clocked by increasing the PCIe frequency?


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## FelipeV (Apr 1, 2008)

I was going to ask about this, how he managed to get 9k in 3dmark 2006, My C2D @ 3.4Ghz I get 15.2 with 8.3, SM2 7K and SM3 8K.
Vista 32 or 64 SP1, with a P5B DLX.


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## Hawk1 (Apr 1, 2008)

EastCoasthandle said:


> In any case, W1z do you know if this card can be over clocked by increasing the PCIe frequency?



Was thinking that too, but I figured since its a G92 based card (vs the 9600's G94), thought it wouldnt be an issue here.


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## EastCoasthandle (Apr 1, 2008)

Hawk1 said:


> Was thinking that too, but I figured since its a G92 based card (vs the 9600's G94), thought it wouldnt be an issue here.



From what I've seen it's not about the gpu but how the PCB is constructed that allows the use of the PCIe frequency to OC the GPU.


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## dragonavenger (Apr 1, 2008)

OMg,  Is the worst review of techpowerUp... 3870X2 Alien performance, lost for 9600GT!!   Unreal scores!! KKKKKKK


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## Hawk1 (Apr 1, 2008)

dragonavenger said:


> OMg,  Is the worst review of techpowerUp... 3870X2 Alien performance, lost for 9600GT!!   Unreal scores!! KKKKKKK



If your talking about the Crysis performance, ATI is hurting with that game since it's release. It was developed with Nvidia and ATI is still working on drivers. With new cards, some games can run poorly - look at Quake 4 - at the higher resolutions, Nvidia looks like crap. It's just drivers. Overall the comparisons look reasonable, though.


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## Apocolypse007 (Apr 1, 2008)

this has to be confusing for consumers. The 8800GTX has the muscle to outperform the 9800GTX.  I'm not saying the 8800 is a better buy, as the price to performance favors the newer card, but the naming scheme has gotten out of hand.

Also i find it hard to see who would buy this card when the 9900 series is rumored for release in July.  Its just bad timing on Nvidia's part and I think they are quickly revising the 9800 for competition against ATI/AMD's 4000 series.


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## Hawk1 (Apr 1, 2008)

Apocolypse007 said:


> Also i find it hard to see who would buy this card when the 9900 series is rumored for release in July.  Its just bad timing on Nvidia's part and I think they are quickly revising the 9800 for competition against ATI/AMD's 4000 series.



Yeah, but you could also say who would buy an ATI card right now when the HD4xxx is supposed to be out around July also. It's just they are both bringing out cards at a fast pace. The question is do you want/need an upgrade now, or can you wait. There is always something new on the horizon.


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## tkpenalty (Apr 1, 2008)

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Zotac/GeForce_9800_GTX/images/front.jpg

This is just a G92 8800GTS with a upgraded power filtering system that is useless on such a low power consuming card..


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## cdawall (Apr 1, 2008)

tkpenalty said:


> http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Zotac/GeForce_9800_GTX/images/front.jpg
> 
> This is just a G92 8800GTS with a upgraded power filtering system that is useless on such a low power consuming card..



no the core is revised


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## [I.R.A]_FBi (Apr 1, 2008)

cdawall said:


> no the core is revised


orly? says who?


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## cdawall (Apr 1, 2008)

[I.R.A]_FBi said:


> orly? says who?



thats the second set of numbers behind the core name the 9800GX2 is a G92-450 the 9800GTX is a G92-420 and right now i can't find what the 8800GTS G92 is but its not a 420


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## puntarenas (Apr 1, 2008)

There are two 8800 GTX 768M in the "System power consumption - Idle" sheet but the 9800GTX is missing, I think it's the first "8800 GTX" with 159W. 

Also this is the first Review I found showing the 9800 GTX with lower peak power consumption in comparsion with the 8800 GTS 512, maybe those were mixed up too?


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## ShadowFold (Apr 1, 2008)

Is anyone else kinda sickened by the fact that its 2% worse than the 8800GTX? Not counting that its cheaper tho


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## eidairaman1 (Apr 2, 2008)

Hawk1 said:


> If your talking about the Crysis performance, ATI is hurting with that game since it's release. It was developed with Nvidia and ATI is still working on drivers. With new cards, some games can run poorly - look at Quake 4 - at the higher resolutions, Nvidia looks like crap. It's just drivers. Overall the comparisons look reasonable, though.



thats what makes this market so crappy, cause developers go with one hardware maker without even attempting to make compatibility with the other, i swear Nvidia is paying Game Creators to create games for their hardware specifically, and making it run like crap on the other side.


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## trt740 (Apr 2, 2008)

This reminds me of the crap intel is pulling with the E3110/ E8400, Asus and the maximus formula / Rampage and now the 8800gts /9800gtx. Atleast this card is somewhat physically different than the 8800gts.


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## trt740 (Apr 2, 2008)

ShadowFold said:


> Is anyone else kinda sickened by the fact that its 2% worse than the 8800GTX? Not counting that its cheaper tho



I don't think it is when both are overclocked.


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## cdawall (Apr 2, 2008)

trt740 said:


> I don't think it is when both are overclocked.



no kidding cause they are getting what 800+ out of the 9800GTX lets see that on a 880GTX


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## newtekie1 (Apr 2, 2008)

eVGA is selling theirs for $349.99!  What does that mean for me?  It means a $10 step-up to a 9800GTX from my 8800GTS!  You can't beat that price.



PyroX1040 said:


> $329 USD + Shipping on Newegg >.> Not $299.99!



The MSRP is set to be between $299 and $349, which is what W1z lists.  He went with the low number.  The cards always go for more the first few weeks they are released.  Any way you look at it, $50 is a decent price to upgrade to the 9800GTX over the 8800GTS.



W1zzard]Those overclocks are amazing said:


> http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Zotac/GeForce_9800_GTX/images/front.jpg
> 
> This is just a G92 8800GTS with a upgraded power filtering system that is useless on such a low power consuming card..



Really, because the overclocking numbers are are a lot better than my 8800GTS could ever dream of hitting.


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## eidairaman1 (Apr 2, 2008)

might aswell wait for the 9900 newtechie


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## DrunkenMafia (Apr 2, 2008)

So it used to be you would get twice the horsepower when going up a Generation of card, but now you get the same performance but twice the value for money... 

8800gtx - $800 
9800GTX - $400 new     (AUS)

I wonder if they were planning on releasing the 9800GTX with a $800 price tag and realised hey...  this thing isn't even as fast as the old 8800GTX...  haahaaa.

Man they are really struggling to make faster gfx cards these days


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## eidairaman1 (Apr 2, 2008)

http://www.nvidia.com/object/geforce9.html

from the Mouth of themselves for minor specs


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## newtekie1 (Apr 2, 2008)

eidairaman1 said:


> might aswell wait for the 9900 newtechie



I can't, I only have about 30 days left on the step-up.


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## btarunr (Apr 3, 2008)

Yeah I wanted to know too, if the PCI-E base frequency affected clocks. 

Either case, I'm disappointed in NV. This didn't tun out to be the "30% faster, 256 SP, GDDR5" I was hoping, it's just 4 % faster to the 8800 GTS 512M :shadedshu


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## eidairaman1 (Apr 3, 2008)

GDDR5 is not ready for release to market, look at GDDR3 and 4.


btarunr said:


> Yeah I wanted to know too, if the PCI-E base frequency affected clocks.
> 
> Either case, I'm disappointed in NV. This didn't tun out to be the "30% faster, 256 SP, GDDR5" I was hoping, it's just 4 % faster to the 8800 GTS 512M :shadedshu


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## theonetruewill (Apr 3, 2008)

This looks about as good value as the HD 2900XT- and no, I was not a fan of that card... Disappointing- but it shows how bloody good the 8800GTX really is and was.


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## btarunr (Apr 3, 2008)

eidairaman1 said:


> GDDR5 is not ready for release to market, look at GDDR3 and 4.



I know, but about two months ago that's what was doing rounds, of the 9800 GTX being an 'absolute monstrosity'. Right.


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## candle_86 (Apr 3, 2008)

you speak of the GT200, but its 384sp with 1024mb and 512bit bus


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## W1zzard (Apr 3, 2008)

i'm not even sure if nvidia will use gddr5 any time soon. afaik gddr5 is an ati invention like gddr4


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## [I.R.A]_FBi (Apr 3, 2008)

btarunr said:


> I know, but about two months ago that's what was doing rounds, of the 9800 GTX being an 'absolute monstrosity'. Right.




the rumor mill, dont trust it.


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## Gzero (Apr 3, 2008)

*Cough*
Price of 8800gtx

Alot cheaper than the new card ^^
Zotac from the same shop


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## Wester547 (Apr 10, 2008)

It's a good review in full, though I'd say the best value on the market period would be the 9600 GT, but the 9800 GTX performs well for the price nontheless.

Slightly OT, and I'm not sure if this matters to anyone, but those Quake 4 frame-rate results for the 512MB GeForce 8600 GTS seem WAY too stupefyingly low... it should be getting at least double that. Not sure if anything went askew during the testing or something, since the card does much better in Prey (which uses the DOOM 3 engine as well). Every review I've seen has the 512MB version scoring a little higher than the 256MB one, not losing performance. But, again, to return to the original topic of discussion, the 9800 GTX doesn't seem like a half-lamentable board, though I was hoping for nVidia to give us something even greater than the 8800 GTX (something that would surmount to more than a refresher chip), but I'm sure that'll happen soon enough.


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## cdawall (Apr 10, 2008)

Gzero said:


> *Cough*
> Price of 8800gtx
> 
> Alot cheaper than the new card ^^
> Zotac from the same shop



30£ isn't exactly a huge amount of money


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## Ragheed (Apr 13, 2008)

A belated thanks for the review. 

Regarding the benchmarks, it's not just the Quake 4 numbers for 8600 GTS that seem out of whack.  The 8800 GTS FPS dropped in both Quake 4 and UT3.  I know you guys have changed your platform slightly, but it seems the only difference is a *faster* processor.

I have an EVGA 8800 GTS 512 I got for $300.  I'm seriously considering step-up, but still have about 18 days left so I'm hoping the price drops a bit on their website (currently it's $350) before I have to act.  You do have to factor in ~$7 shipping from them (if you waive the signature confirmation) and shipping the old card to them, so for me it'll add up to almost $65 for the upgrade.  They clock their GTS at 670 GPU, so the memory is where the real difference will be with stock specs.  But I'm sure the GTX will have plenty more overclocking headroom (my GTS struggles at around 740-750 unless I really crank the fan up).

Also keep in mind that you get the option to do tri-SLI in the future (who knows?  If I can pick up a couple for cheap once Vista's woes are sorted out, Crysis on Very High becomes a possibility--I game on a 22" at 1680 x 1050). Not to mention Hybridpower once those chipsets come out (who said you can't be indulgent and environmentally conscious at the same time? )

And don't forget that the 9-series will soon be the primary focus of Nvidia's driver releases, so the performance gap between 8800 GTS and 9800 GTX may widen with newer games.

If I didn't have the Step-up option, I wouldn't pay $330 for a 9800GTX now that the 8800 GTS can be had for about $220 AR, but I'm sure those GTX prices will come down in a couple of weeks, at least on Newegg and such.


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## tkpenalty (Apr 13, 2008)

btarunr said:


> Yeah I wanted to know too, if the PCI-E base frequency affected clocks.
> 
> Either case, I'm disappointed in NV. This didn't tun out to be the "30% faster, 256 SP, GDDR5" I was hoping, it's just 4 % faster to the 8800 GTS 512M :shadedshu



It *IS* a 8800GTS 512MB except with more power phases (which is pretty useless for such low power consumption; logical with something like a G80 core but wasted on a G92) and a longer PCB and a larger cooler as a result. The extra power connector is also not needed, but supplied :shadedshu, totally just to exploit the weak minded consumer (which seems to have grown in TPU, from like 10% to like 90% of TPU)


Why do people get tricked so easily? G92 is a G92, you *can not* add more stream processors and use memory that the core cannot understand how to use.


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