NVIDIA's GeForce 9800 GX2 tested, still not out
By Ryan Block 
posted March 16th 2008 10:01PM
posted March 16th 2008 10:01PM
[Thanks, Neil and Lin]
posted March 16th 2008 10:01PM
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@Juaquin
Crysis is a POS overhype game that does nothing but make you buy highend card. Maybe Crysis should get their act together and produce a better patch so that their game can run smoothly on people's 8800 or HD 3850 video card. It's call bad programming.
James, I have an E6750, 8800GT SuperClocked (EVGA), 680i SLI (XFX), and 2GB DDR2 800MHz RAM (OCZ Reaper). I have a FAR from top of the line computer, and I can play Crisis perfectly fine at all "High" settings at 1680x1050 with 40FPS average.
To sit there and say this game is a "POS" (you like that term, don't you?) is just as ignorant as your previous posts. Hell, I doubt you've even played the damn game. The industry NEEDS games like Crysis to PUSH IT FORWARD. If everyone just produced games that didn't need any advances in hardware, then we would still be stuck in the 6XXX series.
Just shut up- your points are ignorant and you're going about them entirely wrong. Do yourself a favor and give up.
@Zeus.:God
You tell that to people who wants to play it on their 24" monitor(1920x1200) on some high setting you stupid idiot. This card make NO advancement over the 8800 series. It's nothing but 2 8800gt slap together.
You are pretty stupid. Go ahead and buy it when it's coming out. You're going to feel like a total dick because Nvidia going to announce a new card after you've wasted on this junk.
Yup, a pretty stupid computer technician- you know, because I'm not around computers on a daily basis and I don't research anything. Yup...
I know what the Hell this thing is. Do you think it's some major discovery that it's 2 G92 chip equipped boards slapped together? The naming scheme doesn't make all that much sense but this is going to perform better than the 8800Ultra, guaranteed, by the time its released. All it needs is new drivers.
When are you going to take a hint and shut your mouth? Your arguments mean nothing and are pointless. I run Crysis fine at 1680x1050 on a single 8800GT at all "High" or "Very High" settings, as I said before- what makes you think this isn't going to run the same settings at 1920x1200, considering it is pretty much 2 8800GTs?
Also, where in the Hell did I EVER say I was going to buy this? You assume WAY too much, and that leads me to believe that you're just another know-it-all kiddie who thinks they have the right to come on here and argue with people because they have different (more correct) view. I'm not going to buy this, and never even considered it, but there are people who will, and they WILL have the best performing setup for the time.
So, sonny boy, I would say YOU'RE the stupid one- shut your mouth and listen when you don't have the slightest clue on the situation.
yeah not only is the card almost 2 weeks away from release date, it doesent even have the official drivers and the guys @ nvidia arent complete idiots to release a card that performed like that in the tests. new drivers and and a new service pack for vista should do the trick as well as a faster cpu( oc'd) and much faster freakin ram...then well talk amd
i completely agree with kntgsp since the whole testing looks a bit shady with the pc component on the low side and the tests a bit awkward. besides, the note added at the very end about UNT 3 shows jsut how much of a beast the card really is
Too bad it can't be used on Skilltrail in quad SLI.
It looks like the people with 10 grand to spare will have to go HD 3870 X2, as it could become a single-slot card if it's water-cooled.
Not so bad, seeing as it pretty-much outdid this thing.
Maybe not on the Skilltrail, but the Skulltrail has an Nvidia southbridge which allows Nvidia SLI to work.
Whoops, I meant Skulltrail. And you could still run two of these cards in regualr-old SLi, but since it requires two slots you can't run four of them for octal SLi.
However, the ATi cards are only one slot if you take the heat sink off, so if you were to use low-profile water blocks, you could run four of them for octal crossfirex.
Wow, it plays Crysis at medium quality at almost 60 frames per second at half-HD resolution. Seriously, needs more power.
Then again I use a Mac so my gaming consists of--nothing.
I hope it's an intel mac. You should try linux. We have more games and better hardware support than OSX.
...which is something I find quite amusing.
Nah, I don't need games. My cute 12" Powerbook is fine for my needs until a QuadCore Macbook Pro finally comes out.
@ethana2
In terms of USB hardware support it might be an issue, but you can generally find an equivalent device that's compatible. You're right on internal hardware support, but someone putting down $3000 probably knows what they're getting into. Linux might have more games, but they're mostly the shitty open source kind. Autobots, roll out!
I'm going to buy one for my mail server... just to totally waste all that power :)
wow...
i wish i were that cool...
Wow, i was just sending this site to a friend! very interesting!
Sell it for le$$ than $300 and it would be the most killer video card of all time.
Yeah, and Mercedes-Benz should price the SLR at under $30,000 while they're at it; it'd be the most killer sports car of all time.
Why stop at $300? Sell it at $20, I'm sure Nvidia doesn't care about recouping R&D costs or stealing market share from all the other cards it produces. I'm sure Nvidia has no regard for a tiered production strategy and market forces. Surely scarce resources are actually just invented, and they have no real idea how to price this unit. Why would Nvidia seek profits for their shareholders when I LOVE THE CAPS LOCK KEY can grant them the prestigious 'most killer video card of all time' title.
Surely all companies aspire to this level of greatness.
Why stop at $300? Sell it at $20, I'm sure Nvidia doesn't care about recouping R&D costs or stealing market share from all the other cards it produces. I'm sure Nvidia has no regard for a tiered production strategy and market forces. Surely scarce resources are actually just invented, and they have no real idea how to price this unit. Why would Nvidia seek profits for their shareholders when I LOVE THE CAPS LOCK KEY can grant them the prestigious 'most killer video card of all time' title.
Surely all companies aspire to this level of greatness.
$20 still fits in the under $300 price range.
I thought the GX2 was supposed to be the "high-end" model. It looks like it can just barely beat the performance of the 8800GT, which is the last generation low-end model. Something just don't make sense here. I think I'm just going to stick with the 8800 GTS G92.
Dude, read people above. DRIVERS
MASTERCHIEF DIES!
:'(
God damn it im sick of this shit, we dont need a 1gb graphics card, it only allows game developers to make even more higher graphical games with a lack of decent gameplay..Cough* Crysis..
And my Gigabyte 8600GT 512mb which i bought frkn 4 DAMN MONTHS AGO IS OUTDATED WTF!!!!!!!!!!!!! i could live with 768mb but not this damn it. they should work on getting more out of the same specs like they do in racing cars. back in the day Formula 1 cars were TWIN TURBO V12's they put limits and now they are less than V10's, yet just as fast. if there just gonna do stupid shit like adding more memory to a card or more blades to a razor loll (Gillette and Schick) then make them HUGE (50cm long weighing 20kg with 10gb of memory) and make us pay $2000 but then at least they will last for 10 years. hmm maybe imagine graphics cards in 2020 . wait dont tell me about it lol.
I wouldn't bitch until I knew what the hell is going on- maybe you should think about that.
@rayza563
You've obviously never played Crysis if you're gonna make a comment like that... :)
Seriously, get a 8800GT and play that game. The 8600GT is not a serious gaming card. So if that was what you wanted, it was outdated when you bought it. If you didn't want it for games, it still works doesn't it?
Car analogies don't work with computers. Your's is no exception.
"high res framerates"
I wasn't aware a framerate could be high res. =/
Framerates at high resolutions.
A driver can make a huge difference. If it truly is an unoptimized driver and it jumps up 30 FS at release, then WHAT?
Crysis is nice for benchmarking. However it's one of the few if not the only game, that really requires you to have the best possible graphics card (if you want to milk the goodies), probably two if you want it really smooth, out there. Frankly there is no need to get the new hi-end cards, as there is no games bar a single one, that have performance problems with todays cards.
If this GX2 is priced above the hi-end 8800 series, I'd go for the 8800GTX/Ultra instead as the performance of the GX2 will not magically jump by 10-20% even with top-notch drivers as some may believe. It will perform better (that's a given), yet not better enough to warrant a price of $500+.
I have the NVIDIA link, they already have it up I just changed the link from "9600gt" to "9800gx2" and the link worked!!!!
Check it out!!!
http://www.nvidia.com/object/geforce_9800gx2.html
It is now on the nvidia site (gradually getting uploaded)
:)