After the GeForce 8800 GT, GeForce 8800 GTS 512 MB, GeForce 8800 GS, and GeForce 9800 GX2, Nvidia has decided to launch another card based on the G92 which was introduced in November 2007. This new card is called the GeForce 9800 GTX and represents the single GPU high end solution in the GeForce 9 family.
At the launch of the GeForce 9800 GX2 and especially at that of the GeForce 9600 GT, we questioned the ‘’raison d’être’’ of the new GeForce 9 family. What does a GeForce 9 add compared to the GeForce 8? Unfortunately, the answer is simple: nothing. At this point, Nvidia’s creation of the GeForce 9 line is unjustified and its sole purpose seems to be to make it look as if a new line of cards has arrived in order to avoid a slowing down of sales. It would have been more appropriate to call these cards the GeForce 8700, 8850, 8900, etc.
For this reason, the GeForce 9800 GTX doesn’t really have any surprises in store for us as it is basically just an overclocked GeForce 8800 GTS 512 MB. In our opinion, this seems a bit light for a new generation card meant to replace the GeForce 8800 GTX which has a wider memory bus and more memory.
An original design
For this test, we received a card from Twintech which uses the reference design:
As you can see, the new arrival uses a cooling system similar to that of the GeForce 8800 GTS 512 MB but lies on a longer PCB. Also, it requires 2 six pin PCI Express power connectors given the slightly higher frequencies except for memory which despite everything else goes from 970 to 1100 MHz. However, this is nothing too impressive compared to an overclocked GeForce 8800 GTS 512 MB. Finally, there are two SLI connectors which enable triple SLI support, something that was forgotten on the GeForce 8800 GTS 512 MB.
One consolation is that the card will be commercialized for a price similar to that of the GeForce 8800 GTS 512 MB, which if can be considered to replace the latter, is an advantage.
