Zotac GeForce 9800 GX2

[W1zzard]

Today NVIDIA launches their GeForce 9800 GX2 dual GPU card. It comes with two G92 GPUs and uses a new cooling design where a single cooler sits in the middle and cools both GPUs. We have the card from Zotac on our testbench today which follows the reference design specification. Unlike many other publications all our testing was conducted in Windows XP because we think that's what the majority of users still plays on.

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[rampage]

great review as always, as we know this isnt for the average joe, but for those who like the best or who have 60" tv this would be a must have...

 

[intel igent]

as allways great review W1zz!

im surprised to see that the performance between this and the 3870x2 is so close, i really thought it would be much better

if it were me id save the $150 get the 3870x2 and a few gigs of god RAM

 

[EastCoasthandle]

Great review, I wasn't clear on the drivers used though. However, I do like the idea of you using a motherboard other then a 790i or 780i

Edit: OK, I looked again and the drivers found in the Test Bed are clear!

W1z, is it possible to OC the E6550 to 3.6GHz and bench 2 games just to see if the CPU is holding the X2 and GX2 back?

 

[newtekie1]

Yeah, I would definitely guess the CPU is hold the GX2 and X2 back at the lower resolutions, which is causing the results to be a little unclear. These cards should be scoring much higher scores at lower resolutions.

The card isn't perfect, but it is good to see the cooling doing a much better job than the X2's cooling. NVidia has really put some thought into it, and it shows. The design definitely is complicated, and after market cooling will be a pain, but with temps as good as they are, who needs aftermarket cooling? It is nice to see it overclock so well also.

I definitely thing the card is a very good card, but not worth $600. Buying two 8800GTS 512MB cards is cheaper than that. Then again, buying two 3870s is cheaper than buying a 3870x2. I'd expect the price to drop on this once the initial hype of the card is gone. I expect to see a the price drop to the $500 range in a few weeks.

I'm interested to see quad-SLI up and running though, I hope it is better supported than now than it was before.

Great review W1z, I love your reviews. They are so detailed.

 

[DaMulta]

I saw a post yesterday with a single card almost scoring 30k in 3dmark06.


Great review as always.

 

[Hawk1]

I saw a post yesterday with a single card almost scoring 30k in 3dmark06.


Great review as always.

Yeah, saw that too, but I think that was with insane OC on the CPU/GPU (~5.7Ghz on the CPU, cant remember GPU numbers). Should be good for some WR.

BTW, also like to say great review W1zzard.

 

[W1zzard]

3dmark06 also has cpu score included in the final result. look at other benchmarks.

i also ordered an e8400 for our future gpu reviews rig .. once they are in stock

 

[zOaib]

now thats a satisfying review , honestly , my hats of to Wizz on this one ................. this is the best comparision i have seen b/w the x2 and gx2 .................. and the difference is clear and i am actually surprised ( but happily ) that we dont need an sli board to run this ............ maybe when the prices drop ( wishful thinking ) ill get me self one.

but for value of money and what an x2 and gx2 deliver , they stand perfect in their spots , as bang for you buck.

 

[3870x2]

what of the tweaktown review? way off

 

[intel igent]

I saw a post yesterday with a single card almost scoring 30k in 3dmark06.

That was k|ngp|n have you seen Hipro5 score with single x2? It like 32000 or something

 

[Hawk1]

Title needs to change - unless this IS the 9600GX2, and the 9800 is yet to come - lol that would be something.

 

[ShadowFold]

Great review w1z

The card is a pretty big disappointment to me.. it only scores a few extra frames or its on par with everything else. Nvidia better hope its just drivers

 

[btarunr]

Bad pricing.

 

[Basard]

Nvidia should turn their gpu's into cpu's. That would be godly.

 

[ShadowFold]

Nvidia should turn their gpu's into cpu's. That would be godly.

what? I dont think that would work lol

also the titles says 9600GX2 lol

 

[Solaris17]

miss spelled 9800GX2 on the closer look page.....

it says

" the zotek 9600GX2 is compatable with any 9600GX2"

 

[W1zzard]

oops .. fixed

 

[Nicksterr]

Need some tests with 174.53. Apparently many things were optimized in that driver version.

 

[EastCoasthandle]

Please note that the core clock of both GPUs is dependent on the PCI-Express clock signal, just like on the GeForce 9600 GT. Please read our article here for additional details.

Source
This is what I wanted to know. Until I know the PCIe frequency from other reviewers I will take their results with a a grain of salt! Thanks W1z!

W1z is it possible to show results with the GX2 with a PCIe freq of 100 and 110 to see what kind of gains are had with the PCIe Freq vs GPU OC?

 

[W1zzard]

Need some tests with 174.53. Apparently many things were optimized in that driver version.

i'm happy i even had an XP driver at all... nvidia said "blah blah great card for vista and dx10" .. and gave reviewers only vista drivers .. "we will have xp drivers at launch" .. kthxbye

 

[FilipM]

Well, what will 3 HD3870's or a 3870X2 + 3870 compare to the GX2?

Cos, 449 for an X2 + 170 for a 3870 = 619$ which is not that more from the GX2's 599$ price tag.

Oh, and BTW, great review!

 

[Trigger911]

Wowo allot of game bench's was weird the first few benches you did the single way out preformed the duel. But when aa mode was on the duel kicked up only because the aa work load was shared right. But awesome Review like always.

 

[btarunr]

That was k|ngp|n have you seen Hipro5 score with single x2? It like 32000 or something

Apparently Hipro5 used two cards in Crossfire X. source

 

[Solaris17]

i'm happy i even had an XP driver at all... nvidia said "blah blah great card for vista and dx10" .. and gave reviewers only vista drivers .. "we will have xp drivers at launch" .. kthxbye

lol @ kthnxbye