NVIDIA's First 55nm GPU: GeForce 9800 GTX+ Preview
by Anand Lal Shimpi & Derek Wilson on June 24, 2008 12:00 AM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
How much power does 55nm save?
As far as we know, the GTX+ is a simple die shrink of G92 so the only differences between it and the regular 9800 GTX are clock speeds and power consumption.
Luckily EVGA sent us one of their GeForce 9800 GTX KO cards, which happens to be clocked at virtually the same speed as the upcoming GTX+:
| 9800 GTX+ | EVGA 9800 GTX KO | 9800 GTX | |
| Core Clock | 738MHz | 738MHz | 675MHz |
| Shader Clock | 1836MHz | 1836MHz | 1690MHz |
| Memory Clock | 1100MHz | 1125MHz | 1100MHz |
| Price Point | $229 | $209 - $239 | $199 |
With the 9800 GTX KO you can get the performance of the GTX+ today, without waiting for July 16th for availability. What you do lose out on however is power. At idle the new 55nm chip draws about 3% less power than the overclocked 9800 GTX and actually draws 8.7% more power than the stock-clock 65nm 9800 GTX.
Under load, the GTX+ once again draws around 3% less power than EVGA's KO edition, it would seem that the move to 55nm actually doesn't buy NVIDIA much in the way of power savings.
The Test
We're keeping the commentary to a minimum here as this is a quick preview, we'll have a full performance analysis of the entire AMD and NVIDIA product lineups early tomorrow morning as the NDA lifts on AMD's Radeon HD 4870.
| Test Setup | |
| CPU | Intel Core 2 Extreme QX9770 @ 3.20GHz |
| Motherboard | EVGA nForce 790i SLI Intel DX48BT2 |
| Video Cards | ATI Radeon HD 4850 ATI Radeon HD 3870 X2 ATI Radeon HD 3870 EVGA GeForce 9800 GTX KO NVIDIA GeForce 9800 GTX+ NVIDIA GeForce 9800 GTX NVIDIA GeForce 9800 GX2 NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTX NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT NVIDIA GeForce GTX 280 NVIDIA GeForce GTX 260 |
| Video Drivers | Catalyst Press Driver (8.7 beta) Catalyst 8.5 ForceWare 177.34 (for GT200) ForceWare 177.39 (for 9800 GTX+) ForceWare 175.16 (everything else) |
| Hard Drive | Seagate 7200.9 120GB 8MB 7200RPM |
| RAM | 4 x 1GB Corsair DDR3-1333 7-7-7-20 |
| Operating System | Windows Vista Ultimate 64-bit SP1 |
| PSU | PC Power & Cooling Turbo Cool 1200W |
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SiliconDoc - Tuesday, July 22, 2008 - link
Well thank you for giving me a clue, I wondered why the prices are so arbitrary and ridiculous. Everything is a gambled commodity with shorts and longs nowadays.JarredWalton - Tuesday, June 24, 2008 - link
Using the same process doesn't mean you'll get the same results. It's entirely possible to less a more power efficient chip using 55nm than a competing chip built using 65nm; it's all in the design. AMD has had more time fine-tuning their designs for 55nm, and we could see some updates to NVIDIA's 55nm part that will further reduce power requirements... or not. The fabrication facility is really only a small part of the equation; a great process with a lousy design still won't make for a killer product.JarredWalton - Tuesday, June 24, 2008 - link
Oops!"to less a more" = "to build a more"
Martimus - Tuesday, June 24, 2008 - link
It's funny. Two weeks ago I would have loved to be able to get a 9800GTX for $200 (my budget for a video card in the upcoming build), but now I have absolutely no interest in it at that price due to the great performance of the HD 4850. Even if the two were even I would choose the ATI card because of regular driver updates, but it just amazes me that my fortune has changed so quickly that a card I used to really want no longer interests me because a better cheaper card came out so quickly.puffpio - Tuesday, June 24, 2008 - link
Will this + card oc higher than it's 65nm equivalent?IvanAndreevich - Tuesday, June 24, 2008 - link
It likely will.