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
Final Words
NVIDIA has a pretty solid product lineup now, the problem it is that at the lower end of the lineup the Radeon HD 4850 manages to do a great job of disrupting things:
The Radeon HD 4850 continues to be a better buy than NVIDIA's GeForce 9800 GTX, even if both are priced at $199. The overclocked, 55nm 9800 GTX+ manages to barely outperform the 4850 in a few titles, but loses by a larger margin in others, so for the most part it isn't competitive enough to justify the extra $30. The 4850 also uses significantly less power than the 9800 GTX+, and AMD was quick to point out that by the time the 9800 GTX+ ships that it will also have factory overclocked 4850s. That should make things even more interesting, because honestly, a factory overclocked Radeon HD 4850 is far more attractive to us than an overclocked GTX+.
In a little over 12 hours we'll be able to complete the story with a full look at AMD's RV770 GPU and the Radeon HD 4870, so for a full, detailed performance analysis come back then. Until then, in short, the 9800 GTX+ doesn't really change anything for NVIDIA.
NVIDIA needs to further drop the price of the GeForce 9800 GTX or GTX+ in order to make them truly competitive with the Radeon HD 4850. There's nothing more to it. Price drops on the 8800 line are also necessary, which makes sense given the positioning of the 9800 GTX/GTX+. There's a reasonable chance we'll see some of the 8800 products disappear from NVIDIA's lineup in the near future, so if you've been contemplating adding a second 8800 GT 512 for SLI use, now might not be a bad time to do so; we're seeing cards priced as low as $160 with a $30 mail-in rebate now.
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Anand Lal Shimpi - Tuesday, June 24, 2008 - link
We can probably chalk that up to the GTX+'s new drivers. We retested the old 9800 GTX with the new drivers in Assassin's Creed, Bioshock and The Witcher. NVIDIA told us that the other games we tested didn't change in performance but we didn't verify that. After the Radeon HD 4870 review is done we should be able to go back and retest the rest of the 9800 GTX numbers to help clear up any issues like this.Take care,
Anand
Lonyo - Tuesday, June 24, 2008 - link
Ah, good to know that there is a reason!My fault for skipping over the test bed and ignoring the driver listing I expect!
silversound - Tuesday, June 24, 2008 - link
The 4870 outperforms the GTX 260 with $100 cheaper...And its only 10-15% slower than GTX 280 with half the price!
And 4870 has GDDR5 memory!
silversound - Tuesday, June 24, 2008 - link
http://en.expreview.com/2008/06/24/first-review-hd...">http://en.expreview.com/2008/06/24/first-review-hd...Lifted - Tuesday, June 24, 2008 - link
Damn, that site is getting hammered.Warder45 - Tuesday, June 24, 2008 - link
It's interesting to see how well the 4850 does in the performance per watt area. Even in CF it idles at less then the 9800GTX+, I guess that gap will lessen as Nvidia's 55nm process improves. Now if they would start putting some better coolers on the 4850...Clauzii - Tuesday, June 24, 2008 - link
They did:http://www.legionhardware.com/document.php?id=722">http://www.legionhardware.com/document.php?id=722
They are able to get it from 88 down to 46 @LOAD and 60 down to 37 @IDLE :))
Aquila76 - Tuesday, June 24, 2008 - link
Unless I'm overlooking something, those numbers are for an nVidia 8800GT, not the ATI 4850.Clauzii - Wednesday, June 25, 2008 - link
Ouch... You are right! But I'll asume it will do something alike on ATI's, which have also be found to have 'bad' coolers.OK, a 4870 then:
http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/forum/hardware-canu...">http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/forum/ha...870-512m...
IvanAndreevich - Tuesday, June 24, 2008 - link
I guess you don't have a clue that both ATI and nVidia chips are manufactured in the same place. Or that nVidia doesn't own a foundry.