Nvidia's new GeForce 9800 GTX 3D graphics chip is the spiritual successor to the GeForce 8800 GTX. That latter chip has been the PC gamers' watermark for excellence since it came out at the end of 2006. The difference this time around is while the 8800 GTX debuted with a $600 price tag, our Zogis GeForce 9800 GTX review card comes in about $330. Whether this card is for you will depend on the number of 3D card slots you have in your PC, as well as the games you play. Single-slot PC owners who play lots of Call of Duty 4 and Bioshock will find a lot to like in this card. Anyone considering SLI, or fans of Team Fortress 2, should look to other options.
| GeForce 9800 GTX | GeForce 8800 GT | |
| Price | $300 - $350 | $200 - $250 |
| Manufacturing process | 65nm | 65nm |
| Core clock | 675MHz | 600MHz |
| Stream processors | 128 | 112 |
| Shader clock speed | 1,688MHz | 1,500MHz |
| Memory | 512MB | 512MB |
| Memory speed (data rate) | 1.1GHz | 900MHz |
| Memory Interface | 256-bit | 256-bit |
The GeForce 9800 GTX is basically a ramped-up version of the less expensive GeForce 8800 GT chip that came out earlier this year. In fact, as you can see from our comparison chart, the two chips aren't that different technically, and their price-to-performance difference makes the 9800 GTX's potential upgrade scenarios complicated.
(Longer bars indicate better performance)
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1,280x1,024 |
(Longer bars indicate better performance)
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1,600x1,200 high quality |
(Longer bars indicate better performance)
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2,048x1,536, high quality |
(Longer bars indicate better performance)
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1,600x1,200, high quality |
(Longer bars indicate better performance)
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2,048x1,536, max. quality, 4x anti-aliasing, 8x anisotropic filtering |
As proven by our tests results, provided with care and diligence by our cohort Sarju Shah at GameSpot, a single GeForce 9800 GTX is faster than a single GeForce 8800 GT when you put them side by side. That's why we recommend the 9800 GTX if your PC has only one graphics card slot (except for players of Team Fortress 2). If your PC is SLI capable, though, we'd strongly suggest you consider picking up two 8800 GTs instead. True, you'd have to spend about $70 more, but we think the dramatic performance gains with two 8800 GTs on Bioshock and Call of Duty 4 show that it's worth it to spend that little bit extra, especially if you have a large monitor capable of playing games at 1,600x1,200 or higher resolutions.
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