9800gx2 garbage?

[w153r]

I've been confused lately after reading reviews of current video cards with benchmarks that compare it to the 9800gx2. It seems to me that the 9800gx2's performance is right up there with the 260 sli, 280 sli, and 4870x2 in most games. And the last time I checked a 9800gx2 was about 285 dollars, that is about the price of ONE (high end) 260! What's the deal? Am I missing something? Is it that the 280/260 have new architecture? If that were true, why is the 9800gx2 still neck and neck with it? I do notice certain games seem to be optimized toward ati or nvidia.

 

[swifty_morgan]

9800x2 = garbage !!!!!!!!

Boy am I gonna hear a lot about saying that. It doesn't have enough video memory to keep up with demanding games.....period ! The card, if it was three slots wide instead of two it might be able to remove heat better. A major flaw IMO because the card tanks because of these 2 reasons. Synthetic benchmarks are one thing, reality is another. Spend your money on a gtx260. 192 or 216sp card vanilla. OC'ed one if you can afford it.

 

[w153r]

kk, so size, and heat.. but these aren't synthetic benchmarks! This is a skewed one (the link, it's Assasin's Creed bench), but my point is, it is right next to the gtx280 in all benchmarks. I have a 8800gts640 right now, possibly looking for a sub $300 upgrade. More out of curiosity..

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/radeon-hd-4870-x2,2073-15.html

 

[Huttfuzz]

9800gx2 is a hell of a card. As long as you don't turn on AA that is.

 

[swifty_morgan]

I don't know why I said synthetic benchmarks. Meant real world gaming/usage. Size, they're all big now so that should be a non issue. The newer cards out perform what was king a week ago. Demands on those cards also increased. Through a friends personal experience, and from more people who get involved in these forums, except for an elite ONE, think the x2 is dated and not as good as those charts would make you believe.

Ok, back to the 640 card. This will be in DX9. I have/had the 640/1700 card on a a8nsli32 deluxe with a 4800 dual core ( 939 ) oc to 2.6 and 4gig of ocz platinum. It had momentary lock ups ( 1 to 3 seconds ) where the goodies got intense. I took that out and installed a 4870/512 card. It too had momentary stuttering in intense areas. ( fractions of a second ). It also had texture glitches around the edges of water. I took that out and installed an xfx gtx260. Game plays flawlessly. Not the only game, either in DX9 or DX10 that the 260 plays everything without a hint of problems.

 

[toosober]

There is one game that makes the 9800GX2 croak, and that is Cyrsis. Crysis kills all video cards. Calling the 9800GX2 crap because of one game that you can't run with all the eyecandy on is crap. It is a kick ass card and plays games marvelously.

 

[magicbullet]

9800GX2 was a little kitten and got woke up by BigBangII aka (nvidia driver 180). Now, it is a Serbian tiger.

 

[Homeboy2]

swifty = moron dont listen to him. he's never owned a 9800gx2, his idiot friend did and he couldnt get it to work! lol The card is hot like most hi end cards but its not a big problem.

 

[Lord Gornak]

I too have to respond to swifty. I switched from an 8800 GTS 640 SLI setup to a 9800 GX2 setup because one of my cards failed and the price was right. The 9800 GX2 has the exact same issues as SLIed cards, any games that have SLI issues will have issues with this card. That being said, I have not had any issues with my card, and I regularly play Crysis Warhead, Dead Space, Oblivion, and Company of Heroes. No major framerate drops, microstuttering, etc. The heat generated by this card is closer to a single 8800 GTS 640 than an SLI 8800 640 configuration, IF your case, cables, and fans are configured well. At AUTO idle config my card runs at about 55C, and at AUTO load config it runs about 74C to 78C, about 6 degrees below my previous 8800 SLI setup. Manual fan settings at 100% drop my card into the high 40's at idle, and high 60's at load. I just downloaded the 180.48 drivers and expect a little improvement as far as framerates go, but I really don't need much more at this point as most of my gaming is done with full filters at 1440x900. At 1920x1200 I have to drop the AAxAF a couple notches (yes, this is where 512mb per card limits you) but I am hard pressed to find the difference in detail.

Dagger, help me out here.

 

[dagger]

I too have to respond to swifty. I switched from an 8800 GTS 640 SLI setup to a 9800 GX2 setup because one of my cards failed and the price was right. The 9800 GX2 has the exact same issues as SLIed cards, any games that have SLI issues will have issues with this card. That being said, I have not had any issues with my card, and I regularly play Crysis Warhead, Dead Space, Oblivion, and Company of Heroes. No major framerate drops, microstuttering, etc. The heat generated by this card is closer to a single 8800 GTS 640 than an SLI 8800 640 configuration, IF your case, cables, and fans are configured well. At AUTO idle config my card runs at about 55C, and at AUTO load config it runs about 74C to 78C, about 6 degrees below my previous 8800 SLI setup. Manual fan settings at 100% drop my card into the high 40's at idle, and high 60's at load. I just downloaded the 180.48 drivers and expect a little improvement as far as framerates go, but I really don't need much more at this point as most of my gaming is done with full filters at 1440x900. At 1920x1200 I have to drop the AAxAF a couple notches (yes, this is where 512mb per card limits you) but I am hard pressed to find the difference in detail.

Dagger, help me out here.

Lol, what do you want from me? Everything is already covered.

As for microstuttering, it usually happen with low power cpus or pcie bus bottlenecking. Forcing Split Frame rendering (2 gpu share in rendering every frame) instead of Alternate Frame rendering (each gpu render every other frame) helps even out frame output for the microstuttering as well as decreasing input lag. But it also increase cpu overhead, so lower systems that otherwise microstutters will just bleed fps instead and end result is similar.

Also, microstuttering looks different from normal lag from low fps. It's more like very fast flashing, like old movies, or an old flickering CRT monitor, but faster. Movement is otherwise fluid. Low fps looks like laggy movement, but little to no flickering. A lot of people have unrealistic expectations of x2 cards/sli setups, crank up AA in Crysis, and assume they're seeing microstuttering when it's actually just low fps.

That's about all I can think of so far.

 

[JAYDEEJOHN]

Naw swifty is right














































Just kidding

 

[monsta]

I loved the 9800GX2 so much I bought 2 of them
All the speculation about these cards is hilarious coming from people that havent even owned or used the card. Of course if you crank up the AA too much you are going to lose performance, but overall my experience with these cards has been great, it keeps up or even beats the top current gfx cards. All the new cards run hot , we all have experienced this, its nothing new, so I don't understand what all the fuss is about. One thing thats so hot right now is its price ( I sound like Paris Hilton)

 

[w153r]

I agree, $285 is a sweet deal, too bad they're out of stock! I would love to get one, and use my current 8800gts640 as a physx card, or in another build. I'm not sure what Swifty was trying to say, I think he was saying he's still on 939 platform with PC3200, and wonders why he lags... I have never had a system lock up for 1-3 seconds, what a nub.

 

[Homeboy2]

swifty's just repeating FUD he's read somewhere, oh yeah , his "friend" (imaginary?) had one that never worked. Took him six weeks and then swifty had to convince him it wasnt going to work. and this guy was supposed to be some kind of computer guru! Why he insists on repeating this garbage, i dunno. :lol:

 

[gamerk316]

Heres the deal, the GX2 "only" has 512MB per card, meaning you get to choose one of AA and a high res (max of 1980x1600), otherwise the card gets taxed too much. At lower resolutions (1680 and below), it easily matches any other card.

If you want max res with max AA, this isn't the card for you. If you play at 1680 and below, and don't see the diffrence past 2xAA, then this is one hell of a deal.

As for heat, I used Rivatuner to turn the fan to 80% constant. I max at 75C now, so temps are not an issue whatsoever.

 

[dagger]

Heres the deal, the GX2 "only" has 512MB per card, meaning you get to choose one of AA and a high res (max of 1980x1600), otherwise the card gets taxed too much. At lower resolutions (1680 and below), it easily matches any other card.

If you want max res with max AA, this isn't the card for you. If you play at 1680 and below, and don't see the diffrence past 2xAA, then this is one hell of a deal.

As for heat, I used Rivatuner to turn the fan to 80% constant. I max at 75C now, so temps are not an issue whatsoever.

There is no set resolution at which 512mb runs out. It's different for all games, and even at 1920x1600 4xAA, 9800gx2 fps tanks only in Crysis, and still keeps up in all other games. It even outperforms 4870x2, which use 1gb ram, in Assassin's Creed, Quake Wars and FSX despite the large resolution plus AA (1920x1600 4xAA).
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/radeon-hd-4870-x2,2073-28.html

 

[Lord Gornak]

There is no set resolution at which 512mb runs out. It's different for all games, and even at 1920x1600 4xAA, 9800gx2 fps tanks only in Crysis, and still keeps up in all other games. It even outperforms 4870x2, which use 1gb ram, in Assassin's Creed, Quake Wars and FSX despite the large resolution plus AA (1920x1600 4xAA).
http://www.tomshardware.com/review [...] 73-28.html

The only game which trashes my 9800 GX2 at 19x12 with high filters is Crysis/Warhead. Every other game I currently play (WIC, Oblivion, Mass Effect, HL2, Dead Space, BIA Hell's Highway, COH) kicks a** at 19x12 with filters. Without filters in Crysis I average above 40 FPS at that res. Crysis may hate this card at high res with filters, but one game (albeit the end-all be-all of current benchmarked games) shouldn't deter anyone from picking up this card. With the latest driver update I've also seen an average of a 10% increase in FPS. It really blows away my previous 8800 GTS 640 SLI setup. When my SLI 640 setup failed I was on the verge of purchasing a GTX 260, thank God that Dagger pointed me in the right direction!

 

[magicbullet]

There is no set resolution at which 512mb runs out. It's different for all games, and even at 1920x1600 4xAA, 9800gx2 fps tanks only in Crysis, and still keeps up in all other games. It even outperforms 4870x2, which use 1gb ram, in Assassin's Creed, Quake Wars and FSX despite the large resolution plus AA (1920x1600 4xAA).
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/radeon-hd-4870-x2,2073-28.html

^+1

 

[Just_An_Engineer]

Now, it is a Serbian tiger.

FYI, there is no such thing as a "Serbian" Tiger. The word you were looking for is "Siberian".

 

[JAYDEEJOHN]

While generally I agree , using a x2 solution, a 512mb is enough, but in single card, we see its simply NOT true, take GRID for instance. Or an Obilivion modded game. Using 2 cores, running faster, allows for faster access to the 512ram amounts, which even then in some instances in higher res isnt enough, which is why all the top cards have 896mb of ram or more, as we see even the 4870 512 fail at high res

 

[dagger]

While generally I agree , using a x2 solution, a 512mb is enough, but in single card, we see its simply NOT true, take GRID for instance. Or an Obilivion modded game. Using 2 cores, running faster, allows for faster access to the 512ram amounts, which even then in some instances in higher res isnt enough, which is why all the top cards have 896mb of ram or more, as we see even the 4870 512 fail at high res

GRID is another exception where 512mb of ram runs out quickly. Unlike Crysis, it's not due to high load, but bad texture compression that eats up vram quickly. It affects x2 cards with 512mb per core too, not only single gpu.

 

[JAYDEEJOHN]

yes it does, but not the same impact, % wise