NVIDIA GeForce 9800GTX in Tri SLI Tested
Video Cards & GPUs
NVIDIA SLI Articles
Our early test of the 9800 GTX showed much promise for the card. Now let’s see what happens when we triple them up!
Published Mar 29, 2008 11:00 PM CDT | Updated Tue, Nov 3 2020 7:04 PM CST
Manufacturer: none
6 minute read time
Introduction
Well here I am again finding myself locked in the iBuyPower bunker with more graphics cards than I can poke a stick at. Alongside three 9800 GTX graphics cards we also have two 9800 GX2s all ready to go into the funky water cooled system that we’ve been provided with today.
With Tri SLI drivers in hand, more benchmarks than we had last time and some Dominos Pizza and Dickens Energy Cider, we’re ready to get stuck into the wonderful world of expensive VGA setups which is overkill for most of us, but still wanted oh so badly.
So without further ado, let’s have a look at a few pictures taken during the course of the evening before we move onto the test results.
Some 1337 Pictures
YAY! — Tri SLI is going to work!
Big numbers in 3DMark06!
Just one of the many 20k+ runs we achieved during the night.
Tri SLI in all its glory!
Quad SLI up and running again
The whole setup, including dinner.
Test System Setup and 3DMark06
Test System Setup
Processor(s): Intel Core 2 Quad QX9650 @ 4.4GHz (400MHz x 11)
Cooling: Swiftech Apogee GTX Block (CPU) 3x 120mm Radiator, MCP655-B Pump
Motherboard(s): EVGA 780i SLI
Memory: 2 X 2GB OCZ Reaper X PC6400 DDR-2 4-4-3-12
Hard Disk(s): Western Digital Raptor 150GB 10,00RPM SATA
Power Supply Zalman 1000W Modular
Operating System: Windows Vista Home Premium 64Bit
Drivers: Forceware 174.53 and 174.40
With the system now clocked at 4. 4GHz and a WHQL driver available for Quad SLI, it was time to run a number of setups in more applications than we checked out last time.
3DMark06
Version and / or Patch Used: Build 110
Developer Homepage: http://www.futuremark.com
Product Homepage: http://www.futuremark.com/products/3dmark06/
Buy It Here
3DMark06 is the very latest version of the «Gamers Benchmark» from FutureMark. The newest version of 3DMark expands on the tests in 3DMark05 by adding graphical effects using Shader Model 3.0 and HDR (High Dynamic Range lighting) which will push even the best DX9 graphics cards to the extremes.
3DMark06 also focuses on not just the GPU but the CPU using the AGEIA PhysX software physics library to effectively test single and Dual Core processors.
Straight away we can see that we get some good gains when we move from a single card to a dual 9800 GTX. The gains at 1920 x 1200 are about 80%. When you move from a second to a third card though, the performance isn’t nearly as impressive. We can see that Quad SLI and Tri SLI perform almost identical to each other.
Benchmarks — PT Boats: Knights of the Sea
PT Boats: Knights of the Sea
Version and / or Patch Used: Benchmark Demo
Developer Homepage: http://en.akella.com/
Product Homepage: http://www.pt-boats.net/
PT Boats: Knights of the Sea is a naval action simulator that places gamers in charge of a mosquito fleet of the Allied Forces, Russia or Germany during the height of World War II.
Using the latest Direct X 10 technology PT Boards — Knights of the Sea manages to apply a lot of stress to the components of today which in turn gives us quite an intensive benchmark.
At 1920 x 1200 the SLI setups manage to hit a problem, but as you can see in the lower resolution test we again see decent gains over a single card. Here we can see the GX2 and Quad SLI GX2 giving us about a 10% increase once again. Hopefully the SLI issues are sorted when the full PT Boats game comes out.
Benchmarks — CINEBENCH R10
CINEBENCH R10
Version and / or Patch Used: Release 10
Developer Homepage: http://www.maxon.net/
Product Homepage: http://www.maxon.net
CINEBENCH is a real-world test suite that assesses your computer’s performace capabilities. MAXON CINEBENCH is based on MAXON’s award-winning animation software, CINEMA 4D, which is used extensively by studios and production houses worldwide for 3D content creation. MAXON software has been used in blockbuster movies such as Spider-Man, Star Wars, The Chronicles of Narnia and many more.
MAXON CINEBENCH runs several tests on your computer to measure the performance of the main processor and the graphics card under real world circumstances. The benchmark application makes use of up to 16 CPUs or CPU cores and is available for Windows (32-bit and 64-Bit) and Macintosh (PPC and Intel-based).
Under CINEBENCH 32-bit we can see that the GX2 is able to beat out the GTX, but the addition of extra cards does very little for the score. 64-bit on the other hand gets gains from a single card and puts all four cards quite close together.
Benchmarks — Crysis (Medium and High)
Crysis
Version and / or Patch Used: 1.1
Timedemo or Level Used: Custom time demo
Developer Homepage: http://www.crytek.com/
Product Homepage: http://www.ea.com/crysis/
Buy It Here
From the makers of Far Cry, Crysis offers FPS fans the best-looking, most highly-evolving gameplay, requiring the player to use adaptive tactics and total customization of weapons and armor to survive in dynamic, hostile environments including Zero-G.
Real time editing, bump mapping, dynamic lights, network system, integrated physics system, shaders, shadows and a dynamic music system are just some of the state of-the-art features the CryENGINE™ 2 offers. The CryENGINE™ 2 comes complete with all of its internal tools and also includes the CryENGINE™ 2 Sandbox world editing system.
Moving to Crysis at Medium we can see that we get a good performance jump from a single card setup, but after that the GTX manages to outperform the GX2 both by itself and when running in Quad SLI.
Moving to High paints a slightly different picture; we again see the big gains over the single card when moving to SLI, but this time almost 100% at 1920 x 1200. Tri SLI also manages to give us at the lower resolution about a 15% performance increase. We can see at the higher resolution the SLI GTX setup is actually the best, beating out three and four GPUs.
Benchmarks — Crysis (Very High)
Crysis
Version and / or Patch Used: 1. 1
Timedemo or Level Used: Custom time demo
Developer Homepage: http://www.crytek.com/
Product Homepage: http://www.ea.com/crysis/
Buy It Here
From the makers of Far Cry, Crysis offers FPS fans the best-looking, most highly-evolving gameplay, requiring the player to use adaptive tactics and total customization of weapons and armor to survive in dynamic, hostile environments including Zero-G.
Real time editing, bump mapping, dynamic lights, network system, integrated physics system, shaders, shadows and a dynamic music system are just some of the state of-the-art features the CryENGINE™ 2 offers. The CryENGINE™ 2 comes complete with all of its internal tools and also includes the CryENGINE™ 2 Sandbox world editing system.
Checking out Very High we again see the big gains for the SLI 9800 GTX option when compared to a single card. Tri SLI manages to also increase performance again, but nowhere near what was offered when moving from one to two GPUs.
Benchmarks — Unreal Tournament 3
Unreal Tournament 3
Version and / or Patch Used: 1.1
Timedemo or Level Used:
Developer Homepage: http://www.epicgames.com/
Product Homepage: http://www.unrealtournament3.com/
Buy It Here
Following the formulae that made Unreal Tournament so great the third installment to the series has hit us recently with better than ever graphics. The games uses the latest Unreal Engine which like most modern day games when maxed out puts the pressure on our lineup of graphics cards.
SLI doesn’t offer the gains that we’ve seen from other games here today. We get a slight boost in performance when moving to two cards which equates to about 25%. After that we can see another slight boost at Tri SLI.
Benchmarks — High Quality AA and AF
High Quality AA and AF
Our high quality tests let us separate the men from the boys and the ladies from the girls. If the cards weren’t struggling before they will start to now.
3DMark06
3DMark manages to show some gains for all the different setups. Quad SLI comes out on top, but only by 5% when compared to the Tri SLI setup. The SLI GTX manages to score more than a single GX2 and offers big gains compared to a single GTX.
Final Thoughts
It’s clear that NVIDIA has really got its dual GPU SLI technology sorted out, but when you start mixing it up with three or four GPUs the performance increase while present, is very small, especially in relation to what it costs you to go down that route.
The GX2 continues to be a good offering for people who want to jump on the SLI bandwagon without getting themselves a SLI motherboard. However, if you’re looking at building a new system it might be worth checking out a 780i motherboard and a pair of 9800 GTX cards which really gets things pumping.
NVIDIA has been seen to put a lot of effort into the SLI driver as of late, but it seems that most of the energy has gone into getting two cards to run extremely well together as opposed to three or four.
SLI is becoming a hot topic again, and we will have a 780i board up and running in our VGA labs so we can investigate it more and more as time goes on. Before we sign out though, I have to thank the boys at iBuyPower again for putting up with me and our lovely drink of choice, Dickens Energy Cider.
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Shawn Baker
Shawn takes care of all of our video card reviews. From 2009, Shawn is also taking care of our memory reviews, and from May 2011, Shawn also takes care of our CPU, chipset and motherboard reviews. As of December 2011, Shawn is based out of Taipei, Taiwan.
9800 GT + 8800 GT SLi Problems
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XFX GeForce 9800 GT XXX video card review GECID.
com. Page 1
::>Video cards
>2009> XFX GF9800GT 670M XXX
09-05-2009
Page 1
Page 2
One page
XFX products have been known to us for a long time and have proven to be of high quality and reliability. And although you can’t call it cheap, the products attract with a bright unusual design and good technical characteristics. Today we got the XFX GeForce 9 video card for testing800 GT XXX with 512MB GDDR3 memory. The chip on which the accelerator is built has long ceased to be a novelty, it has been known to us since the time of the first GeForce 8800 GT and has not undergone any changes until now. Therefore, we will skip the detailed description of technological features and confine ourselves to a brief comparative table of the characteristics of NVIDIA crystals.
GeForce 8800 GT |
GeForce 9800 GT |
XFX GeForce |
GeForce 9800 GTX |
GeForce 9800 GTX+ |
GeForce GTS 250 |
|
Graphics chip |
G92-270-A2 |
G92-270-B1 |
G92-270-A2 |
G92-420-A2 |
G92-420-B1 |
G92-421-B1 |
Technical process, nm |
65 |
55 |
65 |
65 |
55 |
55 |
Core frequency, MHz |
600 |
600 |
670 |
675 |
738 |
738 |
Frequency of unified processors, MHz |
1500 |
1500 |
1600 |
1688 |
1836 |
1836 |
Number of universal processors |
112 |
112 |
112 |
128 |
128 |
128 |
Number of texture / blending units |
56 / 16 |
56 / 16 |
64 / 16 |
64 / 16 |
64 / 16 |
64 / 16 |
Effective memory frequency, MHz |
1800 (2*900) |
1800 (2*900) |
1950 (2*975) |
2200 (2*1100) |
2200 (2*1100) |
2200 (2*1100) |
Memory type |
GDDR3 |
GDDR3 |
GDDR3 |
GDDR3 |
GDDR3 |
GDDR3 |
Memory bus width, bits |
256 |
256 |
256 |
256 |
256 |
256 |
800 GT.
Specification
Manufacturer and model |
XFX GeForce 9800 GT XXX |
Graphics core |
NVIDIA GeForce 9800 GT (G92-270-A2) |
Technical process, nm |
65 |
Conveyors |
112 unified |
Supported APIs |
DirectX 10.0 |
Core (shader domain) frequency, MHz |
670 (1600) |
Size (type) of memory, MB |
512 (GDDR3) |
Real (effective) memory frequency, MHz |
975 (1950 DDR) |
Memory bus |
256 bit |
Tire standard |
PCI Express 2. 0 X16 |
Maximum resolution |
Up to 2560×1600 (Dual-link DVI) |
2x DVI-I (VGA via adapter only) |
|
HDCP support |
Yes |
Drivers |
Fresh drivers can be downloaded from: |
Manufacturer website |
http://www.xfxforce.com/ |
So, the XFX GeForce 9800 GT has a core clock of 670 MHz and a memory of 975 MHz (1950 MHz effective), which is slightly higher than the «reference» frequencies recommended by the manufacturer chip. The 512 MB GDDR3 memory has a 256-bit bus. The card supports DirectX 10.0 and OpenGL 2.1, and can also decode high-definition video in the most common formats.
Packaging and Contents
The graphics adapter is packaged in a standard size cardboard box. On the image, made in dark colors, you can see a machine-gun belt twisted in the form of the number “9”, apparently symbolizing the GeForce 9XXX family, and all this against the backdrop of a huge number of barrels and magazines calling for the total destruction of opponents in modern games. The top left shows the XFX logo with the caption «play hard», which can be considered a call for hard play, which is what the accelerator should provide. Below is the NVIDIA logo, the name of the product itself, and the amount of memory.
On the reverse side, you can see all the same inscriptions, an image of a video card, several “screenshots” from games and a detailed listing of the technical characteristics of the system and software recommended by the manufacturer.
So, for a comfortable game, you need a motherboard for AMD or Intel processors with PCI-Express 16x support, 512 MB of memory, an IDE or SATA hard drive, a full-sized case and a power supply with at least one six-pin connector, with a capacity of at least 500 W for a system with one video card and from 600 W for SLI mode. In addition, the manufacturer insists on using Windows XP or Vista operating systems with DirectX 9 installed.c or DirectX 10. Let’s see what’s inside the box.
In addition to the video card itself, the package contains:
- Power adapter from peripheral connectors to 6-pin PCI Express;
- DVI to VGA adapter;
- Quick Install Instructions;
- User’s manual
However, it’s unusual to see such a modest bundle of recently «top» accelerator, without disks and adapters from the built-in TV-out. However, the lack of a disk with drivers, which could be considered a serious drawback, is a consequence of obtaining a sample not from retail. If you buy such a video card in a store, then inside the box, in addition to the above, you will find: a driver disk, an Assassin’s Creed bonus game, a sign on the door «I’m playing — do not disturb.»
The board itself looks solid and has its own design, while the dimensions are standard for the GeForce 9800 GT. It is also important that the card is «single-slot», which means that users will not have problems installing additional cards in expansion slots adjacent to the card.
The black matte textolite deserves special attention, which, in combination with light green connectors and a blackened metal panel, creates a pleasant visual impression, giving the accelerator a more serious and expensive look.
The developers did not be stingy, providing the accelerator with a stiffening rib, which, in addition to preventing the card from bending, fits perfectly into the overall design. The groove in the rib allows you to freely connect an SLI bridge to combine a pair of such video cards.
As mentioned above, the accelerator was equipped with two DVI-I connectors and one TV-out, a fairly standard, but the most convenient and versatile solution that allows you to use almost any information display media available today.
The graphics processor and memory are covered by a single cooling system, which in turn is covered with a lid with an image that repeats the pattern on the box.
Having removed the casing, we find a copper base with cooling fins soldered to it, through which air is blown by a centrifugal fan, commonly called a turbine.
The cooling system itself is small, and looking ahead a little, we note that it is quite loud. At minimum load, the fan spins slowly and silently, but when it increases, it quickly spins up to 75% and becomes the noisiest node of the stand, and at 100% it is very well audible even at some distance from the system unit. However, at the same time, the cooler copes with the cooling task assigned to it, although without a certain power reserve. Also, a four-wire connection can be considered a plus of the system, which allows you to monitor the fan speed and adjust it using PWM (pulse width modulation).
After dismantling the cooler, the graphics processor and memory chips with thermal interface imprints become visible. It is easy to see that the factory thermal interface does not completely cover the surface of the memory chips, therefore, especially if you want to overclock the video card even more, we would advise changing it.
After removing the rest of the thermal paste, we finally got to the GPU. Before us is an old friend G92‑270‑A2. It’s a pity, of course, that today it was not possible to see the updated GeForce 9800 GT on the G92‑270‑B1, which is manufactured using the 55 nm process technology. Unfortunately, once again the manufacturer slips the renamed GeForce 8800 GT, passing it off as a new product.
The board contains soldered memory chips Samsung K4J52324QE-BJ1A, which have an access time of 1 ns (corresponding to a clock frequency of 1000 MHz or an effective frequency of 2000 MHz).