Turn your Geforce 9800 GTX+ into a GTS 250
March 23, 2009 by Cabro · Leave a Comment
Nvidia didn’t make much friends over their recent launch of the Geforce GTS 250. Not surprising, as many tech sites found out that the GTS 250 is nothing more than a Geforce 9800GTX+ with an updated BIOS. To make matters worse, Nvidia then refused many tech sites for sampling their GTS 250 (knowing they will get slated for it). Having said that, the Geforce GTS 250 is still an OK card in terms of price and perfomance. It competes directly with ATI’s Radeon HD 4850, which have been selling quite well.
If you do feel cheated by Nvidia … don’t worry! CPU3D is here to help. If you got a Geforce 9800GTX+ in your current system … we’ll show you how flash it and turn it into a Geforce GTS 250!
XFX Geforce 9800 GTX+ Black Edition Review
March 12, 2009 by Cabro · Leave a Comment
Overall, to say I am impressed with XFX’s tweaked version of the 9800GTX+ would be an understatement. It handles all the recent games with relative ease all while under very tough image quality and resolution settings and all for a price of around US$189. Couple in the fact that you get one or even two quality recent games with the package and you have a purchase that will perform right out of the box.
Sparkle GeForce 9800 GTX+ Graphics Card Review
March 5, 2009 by Cabro · Leave a Comment
The strongest selling point of the Sparkle GeForce 9800 GTX+ is that it stays cool and quiet at all times, which coupled with an integrated HDMI port makes it a good fit for an HTPC. It can handle games just fine when the settings aren’t turned up too high, and the multimedia capabilities are more than adequate for any HD playback.
NVIDIA’s GTX 280M Uses Same G92 Chip as 9800 GTX+
March 4, 2009 by Cabro · Leave a Comment
NVIDIA has the fastest single GPU for the desktop in the GTX 285, a 55nm die-shrunk version of its predecessor the GTX 280. However, ATI has been able to gain a larger market share due to aggressive pricing and ramping of smaller geometries. This has led to price pressure on NVIDIA, especially in the performance mainstream segment.
NVIDIA’s original GT200 chip — which is used in the GTX 280 and GTX 260 — is too big, too costly, and consumes too much power to be used effectively in a mobile solution. NVIDIA has already switched to TSMC’s 55nm process from the baseline 65nm node to deal with these issues for the GTX 285, but it is still not suitable for the majority of laptop users. Battery life is too short, the cooling fan is too loud, and the cost is too much.
Sphere: Related ContentEVGA 9800 GTX+ 512MB Video Card Review
November 9, 2008 by Cabro · Leave a Comment
We have all had our pockets first picked by rising gas prices, then have received a swift kick in the balls by gutted investments and finally getting a slap to the face by the rising prices of damn near everything. This beatdown has led nearly every industry to the realization that the average consumer either can’t or just doesn’t want to afford the best of the best anymore. We see this playing out quite well in the computer component industry with falling prices and more value-oriented products. Gone are the days of the $800 GPU; they have been replaced by efficient, lower-cost products which appeal to a broader market while still achieving performance numbers to be proud of.
Manufacturers like Nvidia and ATI have perfectly seeded this changed market with a plethora of graphics cards which won’t put you out of your rent money since they focus on a “bang for buck” factor everyone seems to be happy with. Let’s be honest, the $150 to $250 price range is the place to be right now as evidenced by the massive number of products all clustered within a mere $100 price bracket. ATI has their new HD 4830 and HD 4850 while Nvidia has the 9600 GT, 9800 GT and 9800 GTX+. Most of these cards have been reviewed by Hardware Canucks but there has always been one notable absentee: the 9800 GTX+.
Even though I am sure many of you know exactly what the 9800 GTX+ is all about (seeing that it was released months ago), I am going to bore you with a quick glossing over of its background. Basically, Nvidia had an excellent card on the market with the 9800 GTX until ATI released their HD 4850 and rained all over the parade. An answer was needed and the boys in green wanted to show that they too could release a 55nm chip (remember, the 9800 GTX used the 65nm manufacturing process). While power consumption and heat production are not supposed to go down significantly when making the jump from 65nm to 55nm, the change allowed the newly minted 9800 GTX ”+” to be clocked higher than the outgoing 9800 GTX. This meant better competition against the HD 4850 while keeping cost increases to a minimum by sticking with a tried and true architecture. The new Plus version of the 9800 GTX has been a hit ever since.
In this case we will be looking at EVGA’s stock clocked 9800 GTX+ which carries with it a price of around $200, putting it into direct competition with the HD 4850. If the price isn’t enough to get your attention, EVGA’s Lifetime Warranty and Trade Up program are sure to sway you in their direction since at this time there are no ATI board partners which offer either service on a consistent basis. But for some of us, performance is everything so it will be interesting to see how this card stacks up.
Fortunately for us, the current financial situation makes the GTX+ prime pickings for a huge swath of consumers either looking to upgrade their system or build a whole new setup. Coupled with the latest drivers from both Nvidia and ATI, we can now show you exactly how the competitors perform against each other using up to date software. Let’s check it out.
Second wave of Radeon 4850 cards to go against Nvidia’s 9800 GTX+
June 24, 2008 by Cabro · Leave a Comment
The first wave of Radeon 4850 boards is already on store shelves, with prices that already are below the MSRP of $199. In Europe, we have seen prices of 130 Euro – which is about $200 and quite surprising, as prices in Europe always have been higher than in the U.S. in the past.
Now we hear that ATI has removed all overclocking restrictions, giving add-in board (AIB) partners more room for new products. Our sources indicate that vendors are preparing a second wave of cards that will feature higher clocks for the GPU and the memory.
Senior ATI officials told us that “4850 Overclocked” cards are likely to come with a core that is clocked about 50 MHz higher, while the GDDR3 memory will be clocked to get at least 5-6 GB/s of bandwidth. Cooling will also change. Pre-announcements indicate that overclocked cards are on their way from companies such as HIS, Sapphire and Diamond.
If you are looking for a big performance jump for acceptable money, this summer is likely to be hot: The Radeon 4850 and the GeForce 9800GTX+ are aiming to attract all those customers that want the most bang for the buck.
As a side note, we also learned that the Radeon 4870 will not be tied down to its default clock speed for very long. We heard that at least one AIB vendor is preparing an overclocked 4870 card.
NVIDIA’s First 55nm GPU: GeForce 9800 GTX+ Preview
June 24, 2008 by Cabro · Leave a Comment
A very smart man at Intel once told me that when designing a microprocessor you can either build a new architecture, or move to a smaller manufacturing process, but you don’t do both at the same time. The reason you don’t do both is because it significantly complicates the design, validation and manufacturing processes – you want to instead limit the number of variables you’re changing in order to guarantee a quick ramp up and good yields of your silicon.
NVIDIA followed this rule of thumb with the GT200, building its “brand new” (or at least significantly evolved) architecture on a tried-and-true 65nm process instead of starting at 55nm. Despite AMD building both RV670 and the new RV770 GPU on TSMC’s 55nm process, NVIDIA hadn’t built anything on a smaller than 65nm process, including the 1.4 billion transistor GT200.
Shortly after the GT200 launched, AMD “responded” with its Radeon HD 4850, a cheap card by comparison, but a far more interesting one from a practical performance standpoint. Priced at $199 and selling for as little as $170, the Radeon HD 4850 managed to invalidate most of NVIDIA’s product line. In response, NVIDIA dropped the price of its GeForce 9800 GTX to $199 as well and introduced one more card: a $229 GeForce 9800 GTX+.
Originally we thought the GTX+ was a silly last minute afterthought as it looked like nothing more than an overclocked 9800 GTX. While its clock speeds are higher, it also happens to be the very first 55nm NVIDIA GPU.
NVIDIA to AMD: Chew on GeForce 9800 GTX+
June 19, 2008 by Cabro · Leave a Comment
Sure, you’ve already heard the news (and probably seen reviews) of AMD’s Radeon HD 4850 and 4870 card – we’ll have our own review ready very soon. NVIDIA apparently got the news as well and decide to try and put some additional pressure on AMD to perform.
The answer: GeForce 9800 GTX+.
What the hell?
GeForce 9800 GTX+ To Fight Radeon HD 4850
June 19, 2008 by Cabro · Leave a Comment
Nvidia has informed their partners of a new GeForce 9800 GTX+ graphics card that will offer better competition against the ATI Radeon HD 4850 graphics card. GeForce 9800 GTX+ will be clocked at 738MHz core and 1836MHz shader compared to 675/1688MHz for the current 9800 GTX card. It will be priced at $229 while the GeForce 9800 GTX price will fall to $199 level. The card will offer support for GeForce PhysX and CUDA-based applications, including Folding@Home and Badaboom video transcoding applications. Expected to launch on June 26th and available in mid July.
Sphere: Related ContentZOTAC Unleashes Water-Cooled GeForce 9800 GTX Graphics Card
June 13, 2008 by Cabro · Leave a Comment
New ZOTAC GeForce 9800 GTX ZONE Edition delivers high-performance, quiet computing
HONG KONG – Jun. 10, 2008 – ZOTAC International (MCO) Ltd., an award-winning NVIDIA AIC, today unleashes its liquid-cooled, near-silent single GPU graphics card – the ZOTAC GeForce 9800 GTX ZONE Edition. The new ZOTAC GeForce 9800 GTX ZONE Edition is the staple of quiet computing, delivering the power of NVIDIA GeForce 9 series graphics power with PureVideo HD video processing technology into a virtually silent graphics card.
Cooled by a custom water-cooling system, the ZOTAC GeForce 9800 GTX ZONE Edition delivers high-performance in DirectX 10 and OpenGL 2.1 titles while keeping thermal and noise levels to a minimum.
Unlike conventional water-cooling units available from third parties, the ZOTAC GeForce 9800 GTX ZONE Edition features a self-contained water-cooling system that requires no end-user maintenance. The self-contained unit comes already attached to the graphics card and only requires the user to mount the 120mm fan and radiator module.
“Many enthusiasts seek better cooling performance and quieter operation from their graphics card cooler through third party vendors, but maintaining low noise with high-performance using air-cooling solutions is a hard task,” said Carsten Berger, marketing director, ZOTAC International (MCO) Ltd. “With our ZOTAC GeForce 9800 GTX ZONE Edition, customers can have the high performance and quiet operation of water-cooling without the hassles of regular maintenance or installation, which often voids the factory graphics card warranty.”
The water-cooling system installed on the ZOTAC GeForce 9800 GTX ZONE Edition delivers up to 21.5-percent lower GPU temperatures compared to traditional air-cooled solutions. The lower overall GPU temperatures result in a cooler ecosystem for all other system components.
In addition to the high-performance water-cooler, the ZOTAC GeForce 9800 GTX ZONE Edition receives a slight performance boost through higher clock speeds. Unlike standard NVIDIA GeForce 9800 GTX based graphics cards, the ZOTAC GeForce 9800 GTX ZONE Edition raises core, shader and memory clock speeds to 700 MHz, 1700 MHz and 2250 MHz, respectively, to extract every ounce of untapped power from NVIDIA’s GeForce 9800 GTX graphics processor.
Enjoy high-performance and quiet computing from a single graphics card with the ZOTAC GeForce 9800 GTX ZONE Edition.
General details
• New ZOTAC GeForce 9800 GTX ZONE Edition
• ZOTAC Water-cooling system
• High-performance, quiet computing
• NVIDIA GeForce 9800 GTX
• 512MB of GDDR3 memory
• 128 stream processors
• 3-way SLI ready
• HybridPower compatible
• PCI Express 2.0 interface (Compatible with 1.1)
• DirectX 10 with Shader Model 4.0 compatible
• OpenGL 2.1 compatible
• PureVideo HD technology with hardware decoding of high-definition video formats
• Dual dual-link DVI – up to 2560×1600
• HDTV output
• XIII Century: Death or Glory game bundle
