Palit 9800GT Super+ 1GB Single/SLI Video Card Review :: Palit 9800GT Super+ 1GB Bundle

• Tomb Raider Anniversary
• 6-pin power adapter
• Palit GeForce 9800GT Super+ 1GB card
• HDMI to DVI adapter
• HDMI Audio cable
• Driver CD
• Quick Installation Guide

One of the issues I have with modern video cards is the lack of a game included with most cards. Palit includes a full copy of Tomb Raider Anniversary with the purchase of this card, meaning that a modern game is included. Tomb Raider Anniversary is a re-imagined version of the classic PC and console game from many years ago.

Box

Back of box

Box open

Bundle

One welcome addition to the bundle is the two Molex connectors to 6-pin power connector. This allows the use of the 6-pin power on older PSUs that don’t have that power connection. The HDMI to DVI adapter allows the use of HDMI monitors by simply plugging the adapter into the video card then plugging the HDMI source into the other end. A HDMI Audio cable is included to use the HDMI Audio on the card.

NVIDIA Control Panel

SLI Enabled

NVIDIA has released a new driver 177.39 for all of their GeForce 9xxx series cards and above to support PhysX. The installation of PhysX System Software is also required to take advantage of the PhysX effects that the card is capable of. One thing to note, that installing the 177.39 drivers by themselves will not enable PhysX effects, and you can test the effect enabling it separately.

3DMark without PhysX

3DMark with PhysX

Running 3DMark Vantage showed a CPU score improvement of over 100% using the 9800GT from 13117 (typical score of a QX9770 on this test platform to 31343 with enabling PhysX only. Unreal Tournament 3 is one of the first games to support hardware accelerated Physics and enabling the PhysX System Software showed frame rate improvements of over 10%-50% with 1920x1200 resolution showing the biggest improvement in framerates.

Overclocking of computer components is a free way of getting more performance out of your existing computer system. Unfortunately, overclocking some component too high results in voiding of the warranty. Palit includes a Vtune application with their Driver CD that has driver settings, overclocking, Fan speed controls and a DirectX Diagnostic tool. I was able to overclock the 9800GT Super+ 1GB to 650MHz core/ 950MHz memory and 1656MHz Shader clock speeds.

Overclocked

Vtune