Colorful Releases Crippled 9800 GT Graphics

[btarunr]

On the brink of being a regular AMD partner, Colorful has come up with a new way to market GeForce 9800 GT cheap: by crippling it with a (much) weaker memory sub-system. The card uses a regular GeForce 9800 GT GPU, with 512 MB of memory. Wait, that sounds pretty normal when it reads on the box, doesn't it? Only till you find out that it's actually 512 MB of DDR2 memory, and that too across a 128-bit wide memory bus.

It uses a red PCB with a simplistic (read: inexpensive) radial cooler. DVI, D-Sub and HDMI connectors are provided on the card, though it is deprived of an SLI interconnect. Furthermore, the card uses a 6-pin power connector to take in power. We certainly hope this card is extremely cheap to warrant its specifications.



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[cdawall]

looks like an old 2600pro

 

[to6ko91]

for a card based on 8800gt then renamed to 9800gt and then crippled to ddr2 and 128bit I think they are going to give them for free or at least they should pay you to use it

 

[WhiteLotus]

cheap enough to stick in a HTPC maybe - other uses, i hope not.

 

[zithe]

So it should be faster than a GDDR2 9600GSO? Should be meh for gaming...

Overkill HTPC?

 

[to6ko91]

So it should be faster than a GDDR2 9600GSO? Should be meh for gaming...

Overkill HTPC?

I actually dobth it to be faster than 9600gso (if slightly overcklocked)

 

[lemonadesoda]

Most of the power (electricity and heat) comes from the GPU and not from the memory. That means: this must also be a severly UNDERCLOCKED card to be able to use a 6-pin and simplistic cooler.

 

[ShadowFold]

This sounded "meh" until I saw the 6pin. This card is pretty useless.
Also, I thought in Asia they used "Colourful" or whatever..

 

[silkstone]

They manufacture these cards for the same damn price why would they want to cripple the memory? gddr2 can't be that much cheaper than gddr3 can it?

 

[lemonadesoda]

They manufacture these cards for the same damn price why would they want to cripple the memory? gddr2 can't be that much cheaper than gddr3 can it?

Could be that there are some "bad bin" GPUs that work happily at lower clocks... hence this product.

 

[DarkMatter]

Most of the power (electricity and heat) comes from the GPU and not from the memory. That means: this must also be a severly UNDERCLOCKED card to be able to use a 6-pin and simplistic cooler.

All 8800/9800 GTs use a 6-pin connector. Agreed on the rest.

Anyway I don't know how are they using only 128bits as the architecture is tied to 64bit per ROP partition AFAIK. What I mean is that most probably this card only uses 8 ROPs. It's a waste, no matter how you look at it.

 

[h3llb3nd4]

They should rename this card to 9700 GS

 

[rampage]

and wait for it, next week they will release another card with the exact same specs but call it the GTX 220, or somthing like that

 

[silkstone]

mone of my first cards was a GTX 020

 

[DarkMatter]

and wait for it, next week they will release another card with the exact same specs but call it the GTX 220, or somthing like that

I doubt it, but that's what happens when you give so much freedom to vendors and partners regarding non-reference designs. On the other hand it does allow for wonderful cards too. It has its pros and its cons, but IMHO it's much better to permit non-reference cards, it keeps things evolving.

 

[InnocentCriminal]

It hurts my eyes.

>.<

 

[Xaser04]

Depending on its price I would imagine this would make a quite good Folding card (or one that could be used as a secondary card for physx etc).

Of course this is heavily reliant on a cheap price tag.

In fact I will mention it a third time, it must be cheap .

 

[Steevo]

Cheap, and you get what you pay for, your first time OC will either burn traces, or cook the core. HTPC =FAIL with this, you still need sound, and with lower specs it will probably introduce alot of noise on the system BUS. This should be targeted at the average user, who knows not and doesn't care anyway.

 

[Static~Charge]

"Colorful" also describes the language that you'll utter when you try to use this card for gaming....

 

[MTnumb]

i can see the headlines already "child killed by exploding GPU fragments" and then colorful would say "what??it says "cheap" on the box! in small prints.
im getting the same question marks as the 8800gt xfx alpha dog edition. although the colorful cooler seems larger.
i think it can be used as an awsome shurikane and it must cost less then one.

 

[zCexVe]

What is with this core???? Does it offer free sex to AIB partners when you buy that thing from nVIDIA?? At first I thought it was a great innovation.But now it is a pain in the ass.It comes round and round and round..No escape.

 

[to6ko91]

"Colorful" also describes the language that you'll utter when you try to use this card for gaming....

lol you made me laugh thanks

 

[Hayder_Master]

let we stop at word "cheap" , how much if priced at 50$ it will be great

 

[niko084]

With a 128bit bus the 9600GSO will rip this card...

This is horrific, I hope they go out of business for doing such things. That is REALLY dirty, I can only imagine now how many people are going to buy this card and then scream nvidia sucks...