Nvidia GeForce 9800 GX2 Review - Page 3

I'm sure you want a new G200 with 256 Stream Processors with 32 ROP GPU out this year, but that just isn't being realistic is it? So you ask, "why wait that long", because Nvidia will milk milk the the G92 that will make Nvidia rich, rich, rich.

I want to see it compared to an ATI dual core card not last year's 3870 ! Plus that 17.2 score sucked big time .... looks like yet another Nvidia clunker ! WAY OVERPRICED !!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Plus get out the hot dogs and marshmallows .... heard you can cook em over the top of one ..... LOL -----

Currently the only cards from Nvidia that support tri-sli are the 8800GTX and 8800ULTRA. So you are limited to what you can get. I remember their being talk that the 9800GTX will support tri-sli but we will see. Let me ask you this... why do you want tri-sli? Typically speaking the only reason someone should get multi gpu system is if they want to have the absolute most high end performance on the market. Well I will tell you that two 9800GX2 will outperform three ultra's or at least be close in performance and for a lot less money. I would opt for maybe waiting for the next gen cards to come out instead but that's just me.
The board you have picked out (780i) will not support DDR3. You must be referring to the 790i. If I were you I would stick with the 780i and get 2X2GB of fast DDR2 memory like OCZ reaperX 1066 or something. I would also stick with 2 8800GTS 512 (outperform 2 8800GTX's in SLI and cost far less). IMO you wont need three cards for awhile. Unless you want to play Crysis at max settings with high resolutions. Even then three ultras have problems with tri-sli scaling.

I'd go with 1 9800GX2... that's about the same as 2 GTS cards... and costs about the same too... that way you can upgrade later to Quad SLI if you ever get the money...

Stay with 780i, and get lots of DDR2 RAM, which is cheap as all hell.

Have you thought about going Q9450? It's about the same price as the Q6600 (a bit more expensive, but not much), and is 45nm instead of 65...

2 GTSes will outperform a 9800GX2 because they have higher default clock speeds. The 9600GT is a lesser card than even an 8800GT, it won't support 3 way SLI and is simply a midrange card. The best value these days for 2 cards are the G92 cards, the 8800GT and 8800GTS 512. The higher attainable clockspeeds of the 65nm G92 chips make them the best deal around. ZOTAC sells G92's clocked at 740MHz and my EVGA's default at 670, OC to 740 easy and really smoke stock GTXes because they have the same 128 SPs but default clocks of 575MHz. The 384-bit wide bus on the GTX is simply not worth the extra money since G92s can hit 740MHz.

The 9-series GPUs are stopgap measures that don't measure up. The 9600 is intentionally a midrange card, not as powerful as the other G92s, and the 9800GTX only clocks at 600MHz without the O/C overhead of its G92 brethren....

SLI/Crossfire is great when it works. It also does wonders for nVidia and ATI profits. But the reality is that NOT all games work well with SLI or Crossfire. Microsoft's FSX is a good example of how SLI/Crossfire will not help fps at all.

Then there are the bugs and stability issues around having 2 or 3 video cards installed. The odds of lockups, spontaneous reboots, CTD, BSOD increase considerably per video card added.

And finally we have Crysis, modified numerous times trying to work with nVidia (and only nVidia) SLI and Tri-SLI with limited success. I mean seriously, THREE 8800GTX Ultra and the game still has some stutters and drops to teens for fps in specific area's of the game play.

Intel's ace card is their multi-core technology and their chipsets and their fab facilities and their understanding of how to get GPU processing integrated and coupled closely with the CPU, bus, etc.

nVidia have stalled and appear to be moving in the wrong direction, or worse, nVidia know what they need to do, but can't accomplish it by themselves -- in other words they NEED to be able to work very closely with Intel, they need a partnership. But they don't have one and Intel have announced they're going head to head with nVidia and ATI.

Don't you folks see the writing on the wall? Even if the 9800GTX is 50% faster than an 8800GTX Ultra, so what? Yipee, you can move AA from 2X to 4X (maybe) and retain equal frame rates. It is going to take a fundamental change in bus technology, chipset technology, CPU/GPU technology. Adding more PCI-E slots, more cooling, and bigger power supplies isn't the solution and this is nVidia's prison.

And yes Intel does have Engineers very capable of GPU engineering as the technical skill set required is NOT radically any different than CPUs.

If nVidia want to survive they need to beg Intel or they need to produce their own CPUs. But seeing as neither AMD/ATI nor nVidia will have 32nm fabs anytime soon -- Intel will by the end of this year -- soooo.

AMD/ATI is realistically the only other company that can work in this area, but they can't see to overcome their yield/fab problems and have some serious financial issues.

Theres even evidence that Crysis is somewhat cpu bottlenecked, as well as flight sim. So, if I was Intel, Id get off their arses and make better cpus, so that they can catch up to these gpus

So it's April 4, Quad SLI Drivers have been out for over a week - where is Tom's update on this article including benchmarks with Quad SLI? I'm quite curious as to how this card is performing now that its drivers are a bit more mature...

I'd also like to see it compared to dual 8800 GTS cards, dual/tri 8800GTX cards, dual/tri-8800 Ultra cards, dual/tri-9800 cards

Shame on Toms for being so slow on this!

I still think it behooves one to purchase the 9800GX2 only with a new PC, as it does not really upgrade any of the 8800 cards (better to simply pair an existing GT or GTX).

I DO think getting one of these cards is better than getting 2 GTS or 2 GTX cards, as there is room to upgrade (another GX2) whereas you are pretty stuck with 2 of the other cards (GTX in tri-SLI is hardly worth doing, and still isn't as good as Quad SLI).

Oh, one last thing... Toms, can you do these benchmarks on a 780 AND a 790 board? I'd be interested if the DDR3 RAM makes much of a difference...

The drivers may not be mature... but at least they have been released...

I want to see an update - Quad SLI should be tested - even if it's only against Crossfire X....

If Quad SLI doesn't scale, then perhaps TRI-SLI really is the only way to go... which would really be a shame

http://www.firingsquad.com/hardwar [...] rformance/
http://www.hardocp.com/article.htm [...] RodXNpYXN0
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3271

I've had similar happen to me when I know the review I am searching for but can't seem to find it with google. Frustrating when I know it's in my favorites on another machine but at the moment it doesn't seem to exist.

Here is 9800GTX vs 8800U 3 way sli:
http://www.firingsquad.com/hardwar [...] /page8.asp

Anand had issues with 3 way sli and couldn't even get 3 ultras' running on the 790i mobo. Pretty impressive Crysis scaling again for 3 way SLI. http://www.anandtech.com/video/sho [...] i=3275&p=5

Those 3 reviews of the GX2 Quad SLI are mixed... and they all seem to conclude that getting the second GX2 is a waste of money unless you want to play Crysis at 1080p res...

The one review that compares Quad SLI to 2 8800GTX cards in SLI showed that the GTX cards are actually just about as good, and actually superior in most games!!

I'd REALLY like to see Toms do a review comparing both Quad SLI and tri-SLI with both the 8800Ultra and the 9800GTX...

I suspect the extra memory per card in the ultra (768 to 512) makes a big difference... remember, you can always overclock a card, but you cannot give it extra memory or bandwidth

I wonder what the 9900 series specs will be...

Hughy hunter,
I have a great idea. Now listen close so you don't miss anything.. We should write a letter to Nvidia to help build a board with 6 PCIE slots all at X16 so we can have a six card SLI. Sound like a plan??? And since it is a well known fact that over the generations of cards that have come out there have been a doubling of speed if not tripling of speed and functionality with each new generation that passes.. So if I buy 4 GT'S in one generation and Buy one GTX or Ultra in the next generation.. You mean they are equal and all that money wasted on SLI and a giant DRIVER disaster is worth it? SLI and the NVIDIA marketing scam is catching up to Nvidia. I'm tired of trying to be taken advantage of. We feel violated! ; ) I have a couple things for Nvidia - a banana and some vasaline should do it. Next

I partially agree. If however you are sick of their product... than you should not buy their product. Nvidia simply floods the market for two reasons 1. to confuse the consumer so 2. the consumer buy's more Nvidia products.

No... it will work on 1.0 and 1.1, they are backwards compatible.

This probably isnt THGs doing. I would bet Nvidia has some say in TH charts. It's better to keep the consumer in the dark on how their high end $600 card works in SLI. Considering that their probably arent a lot of games that will benefit from Quad SLI Nvidia has a strategy... Dont reveal anything! I'm more curious to see how two highly overclocked 9800GTX will perform compared to two 9800GX2... I bet the performance is very similar, not to mention the GTX price is way better!!!

Well that's pretty dang good than! I was under the assumption that a GTX could clock to 800mhz core and a GX2 couldnt get very high due to heat... but you own one and probably have great experience with it. All I'm saying is that I dont think many a game can utilize the Quad SLI and that two GTXs would outperform GX2 in SLI because of the fact of SLI scaling above two physical GPUs.
Crysis on the other hand probably does very well with Quad SLI! I would be interested to see some benchmarks of this.
It is still strange to me that 3870X2 is still the leader in 3dmark06. I tell you... I cant beat a buddy of mine that has two 3870s in crossfire. He is breaking 20k and I'm trying to get upper 19k. Funny how in every other game I have 10-20 frames on him.

two 9800GX2 are not as fast as two 3870X2 in 3dmark06. Period!

I cant even beat two 3870's in crossfire with my rig and same proc.