ASUS Launches 9800 GTX+ ''Dark Knight'' Edition...Seriously!

[btarunr]

NVIDIA seems to have made an exception with the GeForce 9800 GTX / GTX+, for allowing its partners to design and sell non-reference design graphics cards based on the said GPU. Earlier we had seen pictures of a card designed by Palit, perhaps the first non-reference 9800 GTX+, taken during this year's NVISION event. It's ASUS now, with their non-reference GeForce 9800 GTX+ accelerator branded as EN9800GTX+ DK/HTDI/512M, in which "DK" abbreviates Dark Knight.

The card uses a custom PCB designed by ASUS, the power inputs are pushed to the posterior end of the card, a black metal railing is seen covering the side of the card (XFX style), the center of attraction is the large cooler designed by ASUS. It consists of aluminum fin arrays on either sides of a fan, to which heat is conveyed by four heat-pipes. The has a double-slot design, sports 512 MB of GDDR3 memory and is 3-way SLI capable. The card can be pushed as far as 735 MHz (core) and 2,200 MHz (memory). ASUS has set up its product page already.



View at TechPowerUp Main Site

 

[King Wookie]

Looks nice, but will the pricing and cooling make it worthwhile?

 

[MilkyWay]

whats the point in all these versions of cards? too much choice for me and people will be starting to look at this gens card from ati

 

[[I.R.A]_FBi]

tomayto tomaahto, tomayhto etc etc

 

[MilkyWay]

tomayto tomaahto, tomayhto etc etc

yeah i get it they are just calling the same thing something else

its stupid and ridiculous the amount of cards the same name and core, 9999GTS-+= xxxOC edition alpha male plus with a 50mhz extra on the memory and a new cooler

pure crap if you ask me

i feel ripped off when the next month they bring out a card exact same core but with better cooling and more on the core/mem sucks for us

 

[1c3d0g]

This should be an EGGcellent graphics card for Folding@Home, judging from the monstrous cooling device. It makes my EVGA 8800GT SC look like a weak puppy...

 

[FreedomEclipse]

IMHO it looks a little depressing...

you (Asus) call it "dark Knight" but where is the black PCB & Uber sexy matt black cooler???

A few things with this G.card doesnt make sense.

- they give it a cheesy name but ok fine but wheres the black PCB??

- wheres the matt black 'sexy' stealth-bomber-a-like coolers??

- why the hell call it "Dark Knight" but theres no hint of batman about this card.

----obviously they cant ship it with a real sexy cooler as that would make the ROG series cards pointless.


theres nothing 'REALLY' that special about it IMHO might as well just call it 'black edition' like some of AMDs cpus

next up - 'Joker Editon' - so why so serious???

 

[OnBoard]

I like the cooler, but my card is already black =) Though my motherboard is no longer black, but blue, so this would have been nice. Stock cooler is fine, keeping card under 70C in load, but makes a bit of sound while gaming (silent idle).

Don't know what temps this will get and noise, as it doesn't look like a PWM fan (just two wires if I see correctly). Biggest fault in ASUS is however their website. It took over 5min to get the bloody product page open and their website has been like that for years. So glad I don't have to download any drivers there anymore

 

[newtekie1]

yeah i get it they are just calling the same thing something else

its stupid and ridiculous the amount of cards the same name and core, 9999GTS-+= xxxOC edition alpha male plus with a 50mhz extra on the memory and a new cooler

pure crap if you ask me

i feel ripped off when the next month they bring out a card exact same core but with better cooling and more on the core/mem sucks for us

AFAIK, isn't the 9800GTX+ the only card based on this core currently? What exactly are you talking about?

Do you mean there are too many different 9800GTX+ cards? What does it matter, competition is good.

 

[zCexVe]

One more to lineup.I dvise ma frnds just go and get the one with the best cooler and lowest price.And a load of software.OCing can be done afterwards.

 

[El Fiendo]

What he means is, if you go to the Asus website and look up 9800 line of cards, you'll see at least 10 that fall into that category. While there are GT's and GTX's and GTX+'s in that list, you'll see 3 (I believe it was) that are GTX+'s.

He's lamenting that they will toss out a GTX+ and then tweak a memory clock and release it as a new card with a different sku and title. It's why nVidia was receiving fire to change their line-up to make it simpler. Honestly if you go into a computer store, looking over the clerks shoulder into their locked up cabinet, do you know the difference between an Asus EN9800GTX+ ES/512M/XOOC and an ASUS EN9800GTX+ DK/HTDI/512M? Competition is good, but within the own company itself isn't competition, its just confusing the customer.

Unfortunately nVidia didn't do a bang up job of cleaning up their naming with the G200 series and all the manufacturing companies made it worse all the same by adding their own to the title. Does it really need an 'EN' in the title? I know its Asus by the fact it says Asus in front, the EN is just redundant in my eyes and confusing in other customers eyes.

 

[[I.R.A]_FBi]

^^ smart man there

 

[PVTCaboose1337]

This gives a whole new meaning to the dark side of NVIDIA.

 

[suraswami]

ASUS Launches 9800 GTX+ ''Dark Knight'' Edition - would have been cool if the PCB is also Black. Then its really worth to call Dark Knight (atleast by looks)

 

[MilkyWay]

there is to many bloody 9000 series cards, do we really need another one?
then there is the same card but with an oc and something else

too many variations of one product its hampering the market

people dont know whether to wait for the a new revision or the oc version or what?

 

[insider]

It's simple, they buy ATI cards.

 

[acperience7]

there is to many bloody 9000 series cards, do we really need another one?
then there is the same card but with an oc and something else

too many variations of one product its hampering the market

people dont know whether to wait for the a new revision or the oc version or what?

It's like Ice cream. It would kind of suck to go to Baskin Robbins and have only 2 flavors to choose from. At the very least I'm happy for the variety of cards on the market.

 

[CrAsHnBuRnXp]

This should be an EGGcellent graphics card for Folding@Home, judging from the monstrous cooling device. It makes my EVGA 8800GT SC look like a weak puppy...

This isnt Eggxpert.

 

[MilkyWay]

no its like having 12 differnt varietys of chocolate ice cream
or having all those sizes of coca cola those mini cans to the 2 litres

or having 8 sport version of the same ford focus

4 different versions of the exact same card is a no no i dont want an oc edition then a silent edition and a version with a new cooler then having 512mb 1 and 2 gb version of all those cards then a version with unlocked shaders comkes out and they do all the same

or they rename the card from 8800gs to something else add a faster clock speed sell it as a new card, then you get oc'd version of that card and all the other versions

then on the lower end cards you get the exact same card with Gddr 2 and 3 and in 256 nad 512 and 1gb variety


its like saying heres a bmw now 6 months later heres the exact same bmw but with 50 more horse power


i feel raped when i spend money on a card then blam out of the blue a new version of my card with new cooling and slightly more shaders comes out then blam an oc version of that card comes out

or OHHHH a xxx edition

 

[theJesus]

it doesn't really matter when you use aftermarket cooling and do your own ocing anyways, and I like the varying mem sizes. I like the option to get a full 1gb of vram with a current mid-range gpu. It would be nice for doing hi-res texture mods to a game like oblivion or something I think.

idk, personally, I agree a lot of the time there's hardly any difference in cards released by the same company, but here's what I think should be offered for every gpu by every company:

-bare minimum, lowest capacity vram, lowest clocks, stock cooling
-moderate clocks and vram, better air cooler
-highest clocks and vram, best air cooler

Then for only the most popular cards they can try making "special" versions like:

-small, silent, single-slot (so obviously only on popular low-mid gpus since the top-of-the-line ones are too hot and the pcb's are too large)
-maybe different color pcb or some form of "extreme cooling" like liquid cooling kit with everything integrated and ready out-of-box or some shit, as long as the extra features are all significantly different from their main lineup


As long as the naming scheme is consistent and it's easy to tell everything apart (which it probably never will be either) then it should be fine. Sometimes it's nice having all the extra variety for niche shoppers, cuz sometimes you're looking for a card that can meet some very specific requirements . . . but like I said, I agree that a lot of the shit is exactly the same.

 

[Hayder_Master]

still 9800gtx+ interesting in sli

 

[eidairaman1]

whats the point in all these versions of cards? too much choice for me and people will be starting to look at this gens card from ati

They haven't Learned from their mistakes of the 8800 Series, because the 9800 Series and the 8800GTS/GTX performed about the same, it seems history is repeating itself with the GTX200 series aswell, they still think they have no competition when it obviously slapped them in the face.

 

[freakshow]

is there a Joker version hahah lmao sorry bad joke

 

[MadCow]

is there a Joker version hahah lmao sorry bad joke

But then it would just kill itself when you finish a game.

Hopefully that wasn't in too bad taste.

 

[newtekie1]

People complaining about nVidia having too many options, take a trip over to newegg will you?

There are 11 9800GTX+ cards, and 17 HD4870's. Even if you include the original 9800GTX in the count, it is still only 16 to 17, ATi still has more options and there are 25 HD4850's. So please, get your facts straight before you start bashing.

This is how the graphics industry is, I wouldn't want to live in a world where each card only had one option and one option only.