XFX GeForce 9800GTX Video Card Review :: XFX GeForce 9800 GTX 512MB Card

XFX decided to use a modified reference design for their 9800GTX standard clocked card. The cooling solution is a two-slot cooler with a fan that lies over the graphics chip. XFX has their new logo for the 9800GTX on the front of the PCB features an engine that you can see rev up on their website. GeForce 9800GTX is emblazoned on the front left of the PCB and XFX'S logo is on the top left corner of the cooler.

Front of Card

Fan

9800GTX Logo

Top of Card

XFX outfits their card with 512MB of 1.0ns GDDR3 memory clocked at 1.1GHz or 2.2GHz effective. This gives the card a memory bandwidth of 70.4GB/second. The Core clock speed on the XFX card is 675MHz, the default speed. As I said in the introduction, XFX also is releasing higher clocked versions, a 720MHz core clock/1800MHz Shader Clock/2.2GHz Memory clock XT version and a 740MHz/1850MHz/2.28GHz XXX version.

Rear of Card

GeForce Logo

Rear of heatsink

Bottom of Card

NVIDIA is pushing Tri-SLI with the 9800GTX. To that end there are two Golden Finger connectors on the top of the PCB. One difference between the 8800GTS 512MB and the 9800GTX is the ability to use three 9800GTX cards to improve performance in games. The requirements are an nForce 780i/790i SLI motherboard with three PCI Express x16 slots and three NVIDIA cards of the same model. Note that the PSU requirements of three 9800GTXs are also very high. Input and Output areas of the card have not changed in a couple of years since the advent of DVI monitors. The XFX 9800GTX has two Dual-Link DVI-I ports allowing for the use of two 30 inch Dell monitors with a resolution of 2560x1600, the best monitor on the planet for gaming but also one of the more expensive video cards.