XFX GeForce 9800 GX2 @ [H]

After reading the [H] and Anand's reviews I decided to step up to the GX2. I figured, what the heck it's only $127 out of my pocket.
 
Thanks for the review [H]!!

The parts I enjoyed the most:

"The XFX GeForce 9800 GX2 allows a very enjoyable gameplay experience in Crysis at high resolutions. As you can see above, for the first time we have found Anisotropic Filtering to be playable in Crysis using these dual-GPU configurations".

This is the kind of info we needed to know...

"With two GeForce 8800 GTs in SLI we found 8X AF was playable at 1600x1200 but we had to disable it at 1920x1200 in order to keep “High” Shaders Quality and “High” Texture Quality".

It was good to know that it would take more than two 8800 GT's to match the performance level you get from the GX2...

"The Radeon HD 3870 X2, however, had a large impact on performance when AF was enabled at 1920x1200, and when we tried 16X AF at 1600x1200. We found 8X AF was playable at 1600x1200, and disabling it still did not allow us to raise any of the settings to “High.”

"Besides AF, there were some major in-game quality differences between the XFX GeForce 9800 GX2 and ATI Radeon HD 3870 X2. As you can see, at 1600x1200 and 1920x1200 the game was playable only be setting everything to “Medium” on the Radeon HD 3870 X2. The XFX GeForce 9800 GX2 however was able to run with almost everything at “High” at 1600x1200 (save for Objects and Post Processing Quality.) At 1920x1200 it was able to produce higher Texture Quality, Higher Shaders Quality and higher Volumetric Quality, along with 8X AF. The experience was night and day between the XFX GeForce 9800 GX2 and ATI Radeon HD 3870 X2 in Crysis, at any resolution".

I enjoyed you confirmed the fact that the HD 3870 X2 will not look as good in game play as a GX2, nor can we expect the same level of performance in games using it.... (Not sure everybody was on board with that.)

"One important fact about the XFX GeForce 9800 GX2s performance in Crysis is that it perfectly matches the gameplay experience of two GeForce 8800 GTS 512MB video cards in SLI".

Just a good fact to know.... Especially for us non SLI mobo guy's!

Here we see the Radeon HD 3870 X2 trailing, it is important to note that while it doesn’t look so bad in this graph, it felt very bad actually playing the game. It was as if there was severe lagging and choppiness as we played the game at these settings on the Radeon HD 3870 X2, it certainly felt worse than it looks on the graph.

XFX has put together a solid bundle with the XFX GeForce 9800 GX2. The video card performed great, with no hardware problems; it had a very solid feel to it. We were quite impressed with the overclocking ability, and while it is not guaranteed we do feel the GX2 has some good overclocking potential.

The XFX GeForce 9800 GX2 games extremely well, allowing a very high level of gameplay experience in Crysis and the shader intensive game Jericho. The GX2 performance matched that of GeForce 8800 GTS 512MB SLI. The real advantage to the GeForce 9800 GX2 is going to be its ability to allow non-SLI motherboard owners a better performing alternative than the current 8800 GTX.

Totally agree, and plan on taking adventage if that myself!! I do think nVidia hit their 30% minimum speed increase over the Ultra! I was starting to worry about that. ;)

Glad you thought the card was a beauty also...

Thanks again for helping your members out.
 
so are we going to see another generation change when they try to compete with the hd 4870 x2 from Ati? from what little i have seen/read its supposably going to give nvidia a run for its money.. not sayin its going to be worth a crap cause its still a few months off from the rumors i have seen but if ati does produce a gem what is nvidia going to do ...get away from the Ge-Force branding all together?
 
tesfaye said:
After reading the [H] and Anand's reviews I decided to step up to the GX2. I figured, what the heck it's only $127 out of my pocket.
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I would probably take that deal as well. $127 upgrade......that is hard to argue with.
 
How is it a single PCB solution? There are two, completely separate PCBs in that package, so I ask you how it could be considered a "dual GPU on a single PCB."

And the 9600GT is based on the G94 is it not?
 
MrWizard6600 said:
How is it a single PCB solution? There are two, completely separate PCBs in that package, so I ask you how it could be considered a "dual GPU on a single PCB."

And the 9600GT is based on the G94 is it not?
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G94 is a "gimped" G92, just like the G96 that will be used in the 9500. What the hardware differences are in the chips I have no idea.
 
Performance looks good for the card, but 600 dollars? You can buy 2 8800GTs and a 780i Mobo for 600 dollars LOL I do like the power saving features supposedly one card turns off when not gaming to save power and with Quad SLi then 3 cards would turn off when not gaming. This is huge in terms of keeping the heat and power output down.

Can anyone confirm if this actually works properly? If so I might consider stepping up from 2 8800GTX SLi to 2 9800GX2 Quad Sli even though the price seems insane maybe the power savings would make up for it in the long run.
 
Unfortunately I think the 3870 X2's performance is being hindered by PowerPlay problems. I'm not using it as an excuse, just a fact. ATI/AMD really needs to fix the issue so we won't have to rely on the "fixes" we've been messing with in the ATI forums. So, you guys have time to do a quick re-eval with those PowerPlay workarounds and do a recompare? ;)
 
So what happens if the game does not support SLI? Does the card revert to using only one chip or do you get the boost in fps anyway?
 
thanks for the review. maybe now the guys who have been bitching about the performance/non-performance of the gx2 will realize that nvidia is not in business to compete with itself, only to put out graphics solutions to compete with ati. and you covered that pretty well. as did nvidia.
 
I just compared the Crossfire X numbers with two HD 3870 X2 and noticed that a single GX2, manages to have more options set to high and 8xAF, while having a slight lead in average fps, at the same resolution than two HD 3870 X2 in Crossfire.

GX2: http://enthusiast.hardocp.com/article.html?art=MTQ3NSwzLCxoZW50aHVzaWFzdA==

Crossfire X2: http://enthusiast.hardocp.com/article.html?art=MTQ3MCwzLCxoZW50aHVzaWFzdA==

Crysis patch 1.2 is installed for the GX2 eval, while the X2 Crossfire review used 1.1. Everything else seems to be similar, except for the motherboard.
 
Good review. If I do buy this it won't be until June. And then I am not even sure I wouldn't just do a GTS/SLI board.
 
N3mi5is said:
They didn't even use the newest (1.2) patch for crysis
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the new patch wouldn't change those results, it would be more of a driver update that would lead to inherently skewed differences between two SLI'd cards (considering the 9800 GX2 as an SLI setup in this case). a patch would affect SLI performance, in terms of how SLI operates, the % gains between each different SLI setup would most likely be the same for each setup

i'd wager the 1.2 patch would be more/less the same
 
vanilla_guerilla said:
thanks for the review. maybe now the guys who have been bitching about the performance/non-performance of the gx2 will realize that nvidia is not in business to compete with itself, only to put out graphics solutions to compete with ati. and you covered that pretty well. as did nvidia.
Click to expand...

That may very well be, but it will cost Nvidia sales of high end parts in the long term. People will slowly upgrade to a point, but will refuse to get a board that shows very little noticable gameplay advantages over what they already have, or a much cheaper part. I guess Nvidia has shifted it's effort to aggressive pricing if mid range parts with good performance, which is a good thing. Just my opinion.
 
homernoy said:
That may very well be, but it will cost Nvidia sales of high end parts in the long term. People will slowly upgrade to a point, but will refuse to get a board that shows very little noticable gameplay advantages over what they already have, or a much cheaper part. I guess Nvidia has shifted it's effort to aggressive pricing if mid range parts with good performance, which is a good thing. Just my opinion.
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i am pretty sure the market they are looking for is people who dont own/dont want an sli mainboard. so the price is less than 2x 8800 cards and 1 sli mainboard. a little less. and giving people an option to have sli performance without an sli chipset, is taking money out of their own pocket. except for the very few who will be buying 2 of these.


edit did anyone notice that the 790i boards went on sale today also?
 
TalonMan said:
If you have the cash, get the GX2. You won't be sorry! ;)
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yes i have cash actually my plan was to buy single core monster 9800gtx but there isn't any :p and seems 9800gx2 will be fastest for a long time but this bug is very annoying
http://www.driverheaven.net/reviews.php?reviewid=538&pageid=17
'Back when we first reviewed the 3870 X2 we noticed an interesting phenomenon, there were sections of gameplay which suffered from extreme drops in performance that were not present on single GPU cards. This also occurred in some other titles but was most evident in Gears of War. ATI offered us `this explanation` for the drop. As shown in the graph above the GX2 also suffers from the same drops in performance and it is becoming clear that the engine needs some optimisation for use with dual GPU cards. So despite the 8800 Ultra having a lower average frames per second figure it is still the card of choice for Gears because it has completely smooth framerates.'
 
Reality said:
http://www.guru3d.com/article/Videocards/512/12/

look at the 8800 gtx numbers
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Interesting, I got my SLI 8800GTX setup for a total of $350.

kenshin23 said:
Those guru 3d restults are misleading http://www.driverheaven.net/reviews.php?reviewid=538&pageid=22
Check those out gx2 really dose alot better then the ultra. Thats very high settings with the latest patch it dose do alot better saying the patch wont make a difference don't speak if you don't know anything.
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1360x768??? What dumb shit review is that where they dont have any consistent test resolution?

I wish when the Quad SLI review is out along with the 9800GTX review, that Kyle and crew include comparisons to the 8800GTX.
 
um

With GTX (620/1500/975) SLI and a 2.66 stock 6750, 2x2gb ram at 800/1T and a 74 gb raptor my avrg fps with the same settings is

176

That is in COD4 Overgrown multiplayer over a 5 minute period.
 
Sphere said:
Fixed
Click to expand...

"With two GeForce 8800 GTs in SLI we found 8X AF was playable at 1600x1200 but we had to disable it at 1920x1200 in order to keep “High” Shaders Quality and “High” Texture Quality".

It was good to know that it would take more than two 8800 GT's to match the performance level you get from the GX2...

I'll wave at you in your 2 GT's, when I speed by in a single GX2!! Beep Beep...
 
TalonMan said:
I do think nVidia hit their 30% minimum speed increase over the Ultra!
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How do you figure that?

If the GX2 had a minimum of 30% over the Ultra, then why would Kyle have just told me that it would not be worth obtaining a GX2 if you already own a GTX?

I'd think that a minimum of a 30% over an Ultra, which is already a little faster than a GTX, would be enough to make the opposite recommendation, especially considering he said he's running a GTX as well.

Unless 30% doesn't really add up to all that much, in which case it wouldn't be worth spending that kind of money when you already have a GTX.
 
Heh, evga's website is getting POUNDED. Apparently the 30 day extension to step up is making them a lot of sales. My step up technically ran out on saturday, and if they extended it 30 days, i might just go quad SLI, considering i paid full MSRP for my GTS512 back in december, so the upgrade would be a lot less than the 100-150 dollar hit i've already taken PER CARD on resale value.
 
Interesting you choose the 2 * 8800GT for value calling it the "real star of the show".

The "real real star of the show" is 2 * 9600GT, which are significantly cheaper but not that much slower. If you want the best SLI high performance set-up and value matters then that is it.
 
kenshin23 said:
look at the bench's on crysis on basically 1440 very high dx10 no aa but AF u get 45 fps over 26 on ultra im guessing like 19-20 to on gtx yah it is worth it.http://www.driverheaven.net/reviews.php?reviewid=538&pageid=22
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Well, then I don't know what to say about it... all I can tell you is that I just asked Kyle directly (a page back) about a direct comparison, and his response is that it would not be worth spending the money if you already owned a GTX. But if certain Crysis benches are showing DX10 (which I don't run) @ 45FPS @ 1440, then I don't know...
 
sbuckler said:
Interesting you choose the 2 * 8800GT for value calling it the "real star of the show".

The "real real star of the show" is 2 * 9600GT, which are significantly cheaper but not that much slower. If you want the best SLI high performance set-up and value matters then that is it.
Click to expand...
I have to agree with that. The 9600gt is a steal in single or sli configuration if you can get one below $150.

I just skimmed the review and didnt notice anything about temps. Am I blind or was this not mentioned because I dont see temps being listed on a review from anywhere else either? :confused:
 
Sweet. Great Review. I want it. Unfortunately I'm gonna have to deal drugs or something to be able to afford it.
 
oh man i feel sorry for the guys at EVGA, their site this morning was running smoothly... now its lagg city, and processing all those step-ups.... seems some people are going to get alot of overtime in the next week or so
 
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