this card will burn the crap out of the laptop power :D (if it ever available for laptop :P )

I beleive the images are fake but that's just me. Where is the PCB? Think, Why wouldn't they want to show it to us. Also the dimensions don't look right to me and look at the place where the fan is supposed to be - the two sides don't match

EDIT: Plus I just noticed that the PCI Bracket (I don't know if I am naming it correctly) is different

no, the PCB is there - nVidia has been on this kick recently of covering their cards completely with a cover - I guess it gives the cards a more aestheticly pleasing look.

one pick is looking down at the card from the slot side, the other is looking down from the retention side.


anyhow - personally, I don't really see nVidia pulling off a dual core PCB like ATI has been able to - they've run into a lot of different problems here and there with SLI, and I feel that there will be a lot of frustrated customers with this card.

Will the 9800GTX still be faster than this card? what happend to 3times as fast as a 8800Ultra?

Wow what a waste of money. Why would you pay that much for a video card! My HD 3850 was 220$ with a 20$ rebate and I have a really slow cpu and I can max literally every game cept crysis. I just dont see the need for that much power.

30% faster makes me think of 2 8800Ultra's in SLI 80nm, changed to one single card with 2 65nm GPUs for better cooling, they sould of called it a 8800 GX2

ati made a really annoying move (in my opinion) calling the 38xx series what is is after being a simple shrink and revamp of the 2900 (2950 pro/xt anyone?), and i thought nvidia was above that, obviosly not, its a marketing ploy to make people think its a whole generation better, which its not...

8800GX2 would have been completely appropriate and called for, 9800gx2 sounds like 2x 9800GT, its misleading and its annoying.

dont get me wrong, i love nvidia, and ati to some lesser - middle child - sort of extent, but this time youve dissapointed me boys, just cos DAMMIT stooped that low, didnt mean you have to.

7800 to 7900 to 7950 was wise, not misleading, and appropriate, as was x1800-x1900-x1950.....why change a good thing?

Well imo ati did have a reason to change the name. The HD 3800's have alot more fetures, run cooler, smaller die, cheaper, etc.

what im getting at is the performance is misleading, usually a generational jump means 2x performance boost or therabouts, sometimes more sometimes less.

Things are changing I guess. How can we go any faster than we have now? Might as well improve on old tech make it a little faster, shrink the dies, make it not use as much power add new features.

oh of course no disagreement there at all, but personally i think it shouldhave gone like this.

hd3850 shouldhave been hd 2950Pro
hd3870 shouldhave been hd 2950XT

they couldhave still easily gotten their point across about it being more efficient, less hot etc...

i just think it misleads those out there who arent that tech savvy, anyway thats my 2 cents worth.

wolf

I see what your saying but tbh I would rather have a 3850 over a 2900XT any day just because it runs cooler, isnt as loud(my friend has a 2900PRO and its kinda loud) and has awsome HD suport(I hooked my computer up to my HDTV[HDMI to HDMI] and it was amazing) even tho the 2900 is faster.

i get what you mean, in your position id rather the 3850 too, but id rather they had called it a 2950 is all. i was soo close to getting a 3870, but then i got xmas money and opted for the slightly more powerfull 8800GT, i guess in the end the name really means nothing, just how much you paid versus what you get out of it. and it seems the 38xx series is doing very well indeed :D

ill still wait for the 9800GTX, i think future highend products will look same thing like this
9800Ultra 2x as faster as a 8800Ultra with more memory
9800GTX 1.5X faster as a 8800Ultra with more memory
9800GX2 30% Faster than a 8800Ultra with more memory
9800GTS around the same speed as a 8800Ultra or GTX
9800GT around the same speed as a 8800GTS G92
all we can do is hope

Two 8800 GT units definitely outperform a 8800 Ultra and are lower in price than one 8800 Ultra unit (2x ~$250 = ~$500 < ~$600) so for being 30% faster than an ultra, it better be 20% cheaper than it or it becomes pointless buying one, You'd rather buy two 8800 GT units. There's no big deal losing the magical Shader 10.1 but for the 256 shaders the, the mere 30% performance increment over 8800 Ultra disappoints me, maybe the ROP count does the mess here.

No two 8800GTs do not outperform a 8800 Ultra, i know i had 2 GTs and i had a Ultra, the GTs mite get a better beachmark but the Ultra is still a sigle card and no many games uses SLI and the ones that do don't work has they should,at the end of the day the 8800Ultra, still has more memory and still is clocked alot higher and handles high res game alot better 8800GT VS 8800Ultra

Hmm, 30% difference seems a bit low to me, those specs should give it more performance than this. Heh, if you'd put two of these into SLI... :p

Thanks, Live_or_die. A lot of similar benches prove yours correct. I wouldn't pay more than $600 for the 9800 GX2 whenever it comes.

Live OR DieNo two 8800GTs do not outperform a 8800 Ultra, i know i had 2 GTs and i had a Ultra, the GTs mite get a better beachmark but the Ultra is still a sigle card and no many games uses SLI and the ones that do don't work has they should,at the end of the day the 8800Ultra, still has more memory and still is clocked alot higher and handles high res game alot better 8800GT VS 8800Ultra

In games that support SLI twin 8800GT's will outperform a single 8800Ultra.

www.techreport.com/articles.x/13772/4

www.techreport.com/articles.x/13772/5

Unforntunately there is no Ultra in the graphs but considering its not that much quicker than a GTX (which is shown) it would still be slower than the GT SLI setup. (appologies as the link has numerous card setups so you really have to take a good look at the graphs to see which card is which.)

In the second link Timeshift shows a GT SLI Setup to be considerably faster than the GTX (so again a Ultra would slot somewhere in the middle) however in Bioshock the gap would be small to non - existant.

I knew it, 2 g80 gpu´s. This sux.. I want a true g9 gfx card, not a rehash of old stuff!? :(

I hate that they use the name 9800gx2, its totally misleading. It should be called 8800gx2 if the world would be fair and just. But im sad to break it to all you good ppl, the world is not. :)

malware you got it wrong on the PCB its the same as the 7950GTX2 :shadedshu

GeForce 9800 GX2

1. 1GB Frame Buffer


2. Two PCBs


3. Two 65nm GPUs Total


4. 256 Stream Processors Total

Two PCB's? Come on, not again.....imagine those heat issues. A single slot cooler itself wasn't very efficient in cooling a G92 in 8800 GT. Imagine this hot sandwich. :shadedshu

To avoid that, I'd still compliment the ATI R680 for its design. ATI has always shown superiority in design...if nothing else.

btarunrTwo PCB's? Come on, not again.....imagine those heat issues. A single slot cooler itself wasn't very efficient in cooling a G92 in 8800 GT. Imagine this hot sandwich. :shadedshu

To avoid that, I'd still compliment the ATI R680 for its design. ATI has always shown superiority in design...if nothing else.

I have an issue with the HD3890 / R680 or whatever its called in the way that the cooler is laid out. From the shots shown so far it would appear that all the heat exhausted from the first chip is directly pushed onto the second chip (as they are in line). This *could* cause some instability issues if the heat isn't exhausted quickly enough from the second chip.

Any news on the price? I'm guessing it will not be more expensive than the 8800 ultra, maybe the same.

Wow, what a BEAST! It will be to expensive for me to ever consider... besides, I am sure my power supply would fail within a few days if I tried to use this video card in my system. ;)

I love reading about the high end cards and seeing what all they can do... but I only consider video cards at the $150 or less. I am hoping the 8800GT or HD3850 will drop to this range soon.