NVIDIA GeForce 9800 GTX Specs

NVIDIA has been confusing the hell out of me lately. First they release the 8800 GT, which made their subsequent release of the new GTS seem pointless. Then they come out with the 9600 GT which is mid-range at best as their first 9-series offering. Finally, the new GTX specs are leaked, and if they are correct the product is no better than this factory 8800 GT. Even the GX2 specs looked pathetic.

Is this AMD's opportunity to make a headline?
 
jackdhammer said:
A few questions:

1) Wouldn't the drop in memory only affect you if you are running higher than 1900x1200?

2) Is the drop to 256 bit a bigger deal than the drop to 512?

3) Do you think going to 65nm will let you overclock it better?

4) When will [H] run this thing up agianst a 8800GTX and GX2 :D
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1. No, Oblivion for example, gobbles vram with a lot of mods installed.

2. Hard to tell, we'll let the benchmarks tell the tale.

3. Probably....

4. I'm sure Hardocp will do said comparisons.
 
Hurin said:
8800GTX price at release: $650
9800GTX price at release: $349

I'm not sure why nobody considers this progress. Cutting the price of top-end performance by nearly half in 18 months.

Things are alway too expensive, too hot, too big, or too slow. Whenever a manufacturer addresses one (or even several) of these factors, everyone just decides to focus on a different one and continue the whining.
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i dunno about you, but i can buy several 8800GTX cards at scan.co.uk for ~£235.
 
Sovereign said:
Meh. They could have at least been honest and called it the "8900GTX," instead they're implying it's some major leap forward. Unless there's something hidden in there that NVIDIA has been somehow able to keep off the intarwebs, that card disappoints. 256-bit w/512MB GDDR3? At 1100MHz no less? My 7900GTX memory is clocked higher than that... You'd think they'd at least use GDDR4 or something. This is what happens when there's no competition. My only consolation is that maybe the price will be lower this time around (instead of a $500 card, maybe $349 or something since IMO it isn't worth $500...)
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To be fair, 7900 GTX stock memory was 800MHz (1600 effective) and the 9800 GTX is 1100MHz (2200 effective).
 
Das Capitolin said:
NVIDIA has been confusing the hell out of me lately. First they release the 8800 GT, which made their subsequent release of the new GTS seem pointless. Then they come out with the 9600 GT which is mid-range at best as their first 9-series offering. Finally, the new GTX specs are leaked, and if they are correct the product is no better than this factory 8800 GT. Even the GX2 specs looked pathetic.

Is this AMD's opportunity to make a headline?
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8800 GT has 112 stream processors, GTS and GTX have 128.
 
Das Capitolin said:
Is this AMD's opportunity to make a headline?
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Why do you think Nvidia has done this? Because AMD _doesnt_ have anything to roll out right now to compete with a slightly tweaked G92 series. If they did, they'd be rushing out their next architecture.
 
Personally, this seems like a no-brainer time to get things equalized and bring prices in line with what the more general consumers need them to be. Other than bragging rights, there is just no real need to keep pushing brute force while making the cards more and more expensive. nVidia found the sweet spot with the 8800GT, and followed it up with the lower priced, lower watt, cooler running 9600GT, and now they are doing the same with the 9800GTX.

Also, one thing I have learned in this industry is to never ever assume what performance you will get from what specs. everyone is reacting to the lower specs of this card compared to the 8800GTX, not taking into account that the GTX is older. sure, the chip is a die shrink... but it is also a new revision with tweaks that we have no idea about. The memory interface and even the memory itself is 18 months newer technology.

We see amazing performance from a 9600GT with performance that exceeds expectations considering its specs, and everyone forgets that and jumps the gun on what the 9800GTX will give us.

Just wait for the reviews, folks. don't get your panties in a bunch over something that for all intents and purposes doesn't actually exist yet (even if it does).
 
NKDietrich said:
Why do you think Nvidia has done this? Because AMD _doesnt_ have anything to roll out right now to compete with a slightly tweaked G92 series. If they did, they'd be rushing out their next architecture.
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heh, now would be the time for AMD to hit us with a revised 38xx line with fixed ROPs.
 
R3MF said:
i dunno about you, but i can buy several 8800GTX cards at scan.co.uk for ~£235.
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You missed the point. Note where the words "at release" appear.

Of course the 8800gtx now costs much less than it did at release. But that's a direct result of the new cards coming out. So, well, the point still stands.
 
Mephisto_kur said:
Personally, this seems like a no-brainer time to get things equalized and bring prices in line with what the more general consumers need them to be. Other than bragging rights, there is just no real need to keep pushing brute force while making the cards more and more expensive. nVidia found the sweet spot with the 8800GT, and followed it up with the lower priced, lower watt, cooler running 9600GT, and now they are doing the same with the 9800GTX.

Also, one thing I have learned in this industry is to never ever assume what performance you will get from what specs. everyone is reacting to the lower specs of this card compared to the 8800GTX, not taking into account that the GTX is older. sure, the chip is a die shrink... but it is also a new revision with tweaks that we have no idea about. The memory interface and even the memory itself is 18 months newer technology.

We see amazing performance from a 9600GT with performance that exceeds expectations considering its specs, and everyone forgets that and jumps the gun on what the 9800GTX will give us.

Just wait for the reviews, folks. don't get your panties in a bunch over something that for all intents and purposes doesn't actually exist yet (even if it does).
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Oh, it exists, NDA is up in what, a week? They are out there.

Your right, consumers are looking for in-expensive solutions.. The number of "8" series owners was very small just 6 months ago, once the 8800GT hit at the sub $300 price point, EVERYONE bought one. Simple as that..

Take this falling US Dollar and you will find $650 a tough sell compared to just 1 year ago, let alone 18 months ago.
 
this is loco, those should be the specs for the 9800GT not the GTX. Major dissapointment:(
 
NKDietrich said:
Why do you think Nvidia has done this? Because AMD _doesnt_ have anything to roll out right now to compete with a slightly tweaked G92 series. If they did, they'd be rushing out their next architecture.
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Yes, because companies don't actually like to bury their competition? When they have them on the ropes, they just like to give them 18 months of breathing space and just "keep pace" with them via lack-luster products and give them time to recover? All the while, nvidia is just sitting on their haunches and "holding back" their super-duper "monster card" that they could release by just sprinkling pixie dust on it and "rushing" it out. . . because that's how hardware development works.

Or. . . maybe. . . just maybe. . . nvidia doesn't work with magic and pixie dust and can't create hardware ex nihilo according to the time-frames and geeky desires of internet forum dwellers. Maybe they outdid themselves with the 8800gtx and are having trouble coming up with a successor that isn't too big, too hot, too slow, or too expensive. You know, in the same way ATi/AMD is having trouble beating the 8800gtx as well.

If nvidia's "monster card" was ready, they'd have buried ATi/AMD by now.

People like to think that nvidia is just "dogging it" or "taking advantage" of the situation where there is "no competition". . . yet other than the constant assertions by folks on these forums, there is absolutely no evidence of this. And it does not make good business sense. If you have the chance to destroy your competition long-term, you do it. You don't milk short-term profits by "dogging it" only to allow your competition to stay in the market and bite you in the rear 2-3 years down the road. It seems far more likely to me that nvidia, like ATi, is having trouble topping the G80 within the confines of heat, power consumption, size, and price.
 
Hurin said:
*snip*
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Oh, I'm not saying they are sitting on a completed next gen part. If they are, its probably still being tweaked and adjusted and is far from ready. I am saying that if ATIs next gen card was closer, or the 3800 series was more of a threat, we'd be seeing it 3-6 months sooner, probably more expensive, and far more buggy.

Competition drives innovation, thats always how its been. Especially with Nvidia. The power of their new graphics cards often scale similarly to the level of competition they're in. The 5-series was getting pounded into shit by ATIs offerings, so they come out with the 6800 which was seriously good, then ATI releases some more good stuff, and the 7800 appears, same story with the 8800. Now all of a sudden ATI isnt releasing anything that great...and we see a relatively crappy die shrink from Nvidia.

This goes back to before the 5-series as well. Maybe its a coincidence, but Nvidia has always released its most significant upgrades when faced with the most significant competition.
 
Who agrees with me: this should be called the GeForce 8900GTS.

And I agree, this is what a lack of competition gives us.
 
NKDietrich said:
Oh, I'm not saying they are sitting on a completed next gen part. If they are, its probably still being tweaked and adjusted and is far from ready. I am saying that if ATIs next gen card was closer, or the 3800 series was more of a threat, we'd be seeing it 3-6 months sooner, probably more expensive, and far more buggy.

Competition drives innovation, thats always how its been. Especially with Nvidia. The power of their new graphics cards often scale similarly to the level of competition they're in. The 5-series was getting pounded into shit by ATIs offerings, so they come out with the 6800 which was seriously good, then ATI releases some more good stuff, and the 7800 appears, same story with the 8800. Now all of a sudden ATI isnt releasing anything that great...and we see a relatively crappy die shrink from Nvidia.

This goes back to before the 5-series as well. Maybe its a coincidence, but Nvidia has always released its most significant upgrades when faced with the most significant competition.
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All reasonable. And thanks for taking a nicer tone in your reply than my somewhat sarcastic post probably deserved. :D

That sarcasm wasn't directed at you personally. It was more directed at all those folks who seem to get unreasonably angry at nvidia and accuse it of somehow wronging them by not releasing the card that they just assert must be --or should be-- ready by now. For months now, they have meandered around these forums, making these bold (largely unsubstantiated) assertions. Which wouldn't be so bad if they weren't so righteously indignant and angry about something that seems to be nothing more than a theory they've concocted in their heads so that they will have someone to blame for not being given something to which they somehow seem to feel oddly entitled.
 
Hurin said:
All reasonable. And thanks for taking a nicer tone in your reply than my somewhat sarcastic post probably deserved. :D

That sarcasm wasn't directed at you personally. It was more directed at all those folks who seem to get unreasonably angry at nvidia and accuse it of somehow wronging them by not releasing the card that they just assert must be --or should be-- ready by now. For months now, they have meandered around these forums, making these bold (largely unsubstantiated) assertions. Which wouldn't be so bad if they weren't so righteously indignant and angry about something that seems to be nothing more than a theory they've concocted in their heads so that they will have someone to blame for not being given something to which they somehow seem to feel oddly entitled.
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Heh with some of the shit I see around here lately your post was downright friendly :D Plus I happen to agree with you that this sense of entitlement as of late is pretty ridiculous. Yeah its strange that Nvidia chose to use the 9xxx series name for a die shrink, but beyond that, its no reason to get angry.
 
I have my 8800GTX OCed(of course:p)to 621/1460/2200 on the stock cooler and man does it rip..It also warms up my game room pretty good also.As far as games go,nothing cripples it* and I game @1920x1080(sig rig),but I would like something that puts out less heat..Is the 9800GTX a viable solution for that purpose mainly?I wont pony up $600 for the GX2,and I know my ~$300 for a 9800GTX may or may not pay off..Of course I can lessen that by selling my 8800GTX..

*Crysis will count only if GX2 in QSLI runs it maxed at no lower than 60fps constant..;)
 
I suppose some of you expected a major upgrade, but it would have come with a major price increase. Nvidia seems to have decided to sell more video cards to a larger set of people at overall lower prices.

If you guys want Crysis and UT3 to sell more than 20k copies to a few enthusiasts and their buddies, then yeah, more decently-performing cards need to make it into more mainstream computers.
 
Hurin said:
Yes, because companies don't actually like to bury their competition? When they have them on the ropes, they just like to give them 18 months of breathing space and just "keep pace" with them via lack-luster products and give them time to recover? All the while, nvidia is just sitting on their haunches and "holding back" their super-duper "monster card" that they could release by just sprinkling pixie dust on it and "rushing" it out. . . because that's how hardware development works.

Or. . . maybe. . . just maybe. . . nvidia doesn't work with magic and pixie dust and can't create hardware ex nihilo according to the time-frames and geeky desires of internet forum dwellers. Maybe they outdid themselves with the 8800gtx and are having trouble coming up with a successor that isn't too big, too hot, too slow, or too expensive. You know, in the same way ATi/AMD is having trouble beating the 8800gtx as well.

If nvidia's "monster card" was ready, they'd have buried ATi/AMD by now.

People like to think that nvidia is just "dogging it" or "taking advantage" of the situation where there is "no competition". . . yet other than the constant assertions by folks on these forums, there is absolutely no evidence of this. And it does not make good business sense. If you have the chance to destroy your competition long-term, you do it. You don't milk short-term profits by "dogging it" only to allow your competition to stay in the market and bite you in the rear 2-3 years down the road. It seems far more likely to me that nvidia, like ATi, is having trouble topping the G80 within the confines of heat, power consumption, size, and price.
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And I can say the same things about your assertions. Given past history with the 6 series, the 7 series, and then the 8 series I really dont see the slow down. In all honesty they were slow to bring out the 9 series and we should be getting ready to look forward to the 10 series in a few months, if we went be the history books.

So yea I'm going to go ahead and say that nVidia is practicing the same smart business sense that intel is practicing right now against amd. And I know you arent going to try and sit there and tell us that intel couldnt bury amd into the ground right now if they really wanted to.

With out competition, the industry becomes stagnant.
 
DemonDiablo said:
With out competition, the industry becomes stagnant.
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Except for the part where what cost $650 at release 18 months ago costs $300-349 now.

I wouldn't call that "stagnant."

Performance-per-dollar has essentially doubled.
 
Hurin said:
Except for the part where what cost $650 at release 18 months ago costs $300-349 now.

I wouldn't call that "stagnant."

Performance-per-dollar has essentially doubled.
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And there is still only one game that taxes those 1.5 year old top end cards! Really awesome video performance is available for chump change today.
 
Hurin said:
Except for the part where what cost $650 at release 18 months ago costs $300-349 now.

I wouldn't call that "stagnant."

Performance-per-dollar has essentially doubled.
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Stagnant in the sense of increased performance.

Once again as you see in the cpu industry because competition in performance has become stagnant the two power hitters are now competting on the only available playing field which is price points.

So now we see here in the gpu/vpu sector the same thing happening. It's been a long time since we've seen new video cards dropping at these prices as you pointed out.

So here we have a bright side for the people who dont have 8 series cards now being able to buy top of the line brand new cards with hd decoding abilities for "cheap" (use cheap losely here) while the people with 8 series cards are like not much to upgrade to.

In my opinion all the better, not like anything other than crysis is taxing video cards anyways and there really isnt much hint at anything in the foreseeable furture giving much issue either.
 
There really isnt anything on the horizon other than Age of Conan (maybe) that will even remotely stress gpus compared to Crysis.
 
this card is going to be awesome for those who don't already have an 8800 series card and were looking for great price : performance.

the rest of us can scoff at it, secretly angry that we paid on a different ratio for our performance.

make room for the (1337)^-1
 
NKDietrich said:
And there is still only one game that taxes those 1.5 year old top end cards! Really awesome video performance is available for chump change today.
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I agree with this too and think it's actually a good thing for PC gaming. The 9600GT especially is just insanely fast for its price. Never has a cheap card like that been able to play new games maxed out, let alone at high resolutions.

I love graphics more than most people, so I love seeing newer, faster cards, but when it comes down to it, I want to buy something that's fast and reasonably-priced. The $500+ segment really doesn't make companies like NVIDIA and ATI huge profits to begin with, especially with such a low percentage of people buying high-end cards. The mid-range is what really matters and both companies are catering to that market, so it's a good thing.
 
What happens when those of us with 30" lcd monitors want to watch our BR disks?
 
Big D. said:
I agree with this too and think it's actually a good thing for PC gaming. The 9600GT especially is just insanely fast for its price. Never has a cheap card like that been able to play new games maxed out, let alone at high resolutions.

I love graphics more than most people, so I love seeing newer, faster cards, but when it comes down to it, I want to buy something that's fast and reasonably-priced. The $500+ segment really doesn't make companies like NVIDIA and ATI huge profits to begin with, especially with such a low percentage of people buying high-end cards. The mid-range is what really matters and both companies are catering to that market, so it's a good thing.
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I actually remember the last time I dropped $175 on a video card that could play everything maxed out. It was on an Nvidia TNT2 Ultra 32MB. I wonder if I'm remembering the price correctly.
 
And given the way 9600GT prices have been coming down, I'm thinking that you'll be able to pick-up an 8800GTX for around $250-300 w/in a month of release. Really, if you're looking for a high-end improvement, you're going to need to look to it from the 9800GX2.

In terms of the 9800GTX just being a factory OCed G92-8800GTS, we'll just have to see how well it OC's. Once again, within a month you may well be able to get some 9800GTX's that are OCed beyond the eVGA G92-8800GTS SSC (740/1100MHz- the highest factory-clocked G92-8800GTS I've seen on the market) for ~$300. Given that with the exception of Crysis, software has stayed within the bounds of what the 8800GTX is capable of, nVidia hasn't yet had much of a reason to push the boundaries with anything other than the 9800GX2 and thus affordability it likely a greater concern for them- bringing (roughly) the performance of the 8800GTX to the masses as opposed to rolling out a new super card now just to tackle Crysis (by the time titles with equivalent demands to Crysis, like Far Cry 2, start hitting shelves they'll likely roll out their true next generation card).
 
Hurin said:
8800GTX price at release: $650
9800GTX price at release: $349

I'm not sure why nobody considers this progress. Cutting the price of top-end performance by nearly half in 18 months.

Things are alway too expensive, too hot, too big, or too slow. Whenever a manufacturer addresses one (or even several) of these factors, everyone just decides to focus on a different one and continue the whining.
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I got a feeling that true next gen will pump the GTX prices back up to "Normal". $550+ for the GTX at launch.

This... this seems like a rehash. Thus with no new overhead for producing brand new chipsets, theyre able to lower their production costs while retaining their profit margins.
For us that means a 9800 "GTX" for $350 bucks.

That card had BEST overclock hard and produce a noticable bump in performance IN game otherwise its simply not worth it as an upgrade or even a step up.
 
Sucks for the people who sold their 8800GTX's thinking the next batch was going to blow current cards out of the water.
 
jonjon0nline said:
Sucks for the people who sold their 8800GTX's thinking the next batch was going to blow current cards out of the water.
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If they're looking at the 9800GX2, from what I've heard of people who have the card who are using something reminiscent of release drivers (as opposed to Tweaktown's early January drivers that basically had the card running without SLI- and those results for it being in not-SLI mode actually were not at all bad) it will deliver on its promise of ~30% over the Ultra. Not a huge leap, but anyone who sold their 8800GTX in favor of getting a 9800GX2 or 9800GTX knew ~2 months in advance that nVidia was only promising a 30% performance boost over the Ultra for the GX2 (the greater of the two cards). What might suck is that the 9800GX2 is going to be $600 instead of $450, but if you're selling an 8800GTX to go for a 9800GX2 you probably don't care a whole lot about the price.
 
nVidia seems to be doing with the g80 what AMD did with K8... and that's milking their teat and waiting for their ass to be bitten. I sure hope AMD comes back with the Core2 equivalent GPU.
 
hl3395 said:
nVidia seems to be doing with the g80 what AMD did with K8... and that's milking their teat and waiting for their ass to be bitten. I sure hope AMD comes back with the Core2 equivalent GPU.
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(shrug) If the reports that nVidia already has another load of cards it's working on for a June/July release are true, I don't think any ass-biting at all is going to occur.
 
snaggletooth said:
this card is going to be awesome for those who don't already have an 8800 series card and were looking for great price : performance.

the rest of us can scoff at it, secretly angry that we paid on a different ratio for our performance.

make room for the (1337)^-1
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Yeah this is good for PC gaming overall. I think that with $600 + high end cards that it could be in trouble. But at $350 for the high end it is doing GREAT! If you can pay $150 or less for a 9600gt and play new games at decent levels then we are on the path to *"PC Master Race"* glory.

*Quote from Zero Punctuation* :p

(I only like consoles for racing games)

I was thinking that I want a 9 series, and then I thought what games can I play not already maxed out except for Crysis? The answer was none.

It seems (self included) we have a hardware fetish...why else would we be here? Maybe this is why so many are disappointed; NV releasing these slightly better cards is the equivalent of getting out of the pool with a nice breeze going for the e-peen.:eek:
 
Will this card output 1080p over component?

(Yes, my display can handle it and yes component is capable of carrying 1080p)
 
This sounds like a Bumped up 8800GTS to me. Even though I'm impressed with the 9600GT and its place in the Budget Gaming Sector, this is no time for Nvidia to Slack off, as most will tell you unless it has a serious increase in Horse Power over the 8800GTX, most will probably stay away from it.
 
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