ASUS EN9800GTX 512MB

[Rob Williams]

It's not too often that the fastest single-GPU available is also affordable, but the 9800 GTX is just that. At just over $300, it delivers incredible performance at all resolutions and also turns out to be amazingly overclockable. It's just too bad that the 8800 GTS 512 is not much slower...

You can read the full review here and then discuss it here!

[Merlin]

Hmmmmmm
Two 6 pin power suppliies
I'm not sure, but I don' recall any power supply that has 3 sets for a 3 SLI use.
Not I would ever have a need to go 3 SLI

My first cup of coffee this morning is slowly bringing me to the world.

Merlin

[Greg King]

Originally Posted by Merlin

My first cup of coffee this morning is slowly bringing me to the world.

Merlin

It's beautiful isn't it?

[Syran]

Originally Posted by Merlin

Hmmmmmm
Two 6 pin power suppliies
I'm not sure, but I don' recall any power supply that has 3 sets for a 3 SLI use.
Not I would ever have a need to go 3 SLI

My first cup of coffee this morning is slowly bringing me to the world.

Merlin

Actually, Newegg sells 14 different 1000W+ PSUs that have enough connectors to handle tri-sli.

[Merlin]

Originally Posted by Syran

Actually, Newegg sells 14 different 1000W+ PSUs that have enough connectors to handle tri-sli.

Well, swaggle me sideways and call me Lucy....look at that
Modular systems to boot
The last OCZ PSU I had was not modular, but I got such a good price, I felt like I stole it
137.xx and they were selling all over for 265.xx
Hey, Was marked that price on the bargan table......
Coffee did the trick..........

Merlin
Awake and at work now

[Rob Williams]

The fact that these cards require 2 PCI-E connectors bugs me, because as I said in the review, these are merely overclocked 8800 GTS 512 cards. But on the other hand, the card overclocked well, so that's at least something.

Hi, after having purchased this card myself and having used it for about a month now, I read your review and think you have some good points.

I have only been playing UT3 on it though since I haven't had an opportunity to pick up Crysis yet.
I noticed in your review of UT3 that you disabled the 'physicx' setting, however what I read and found out was that the 9800 has a software/chip (not sure which) that can 'function' as a physicx card, as soon as you've installed the software nvidia so humbly provides... (if you care to search for it 5 minutes that is).

I personally tested my card with UT3 and to me it appeared to run supersmooth.
mind you I play on a 1650x1080 TFT screen (so that means no refreshrate above 60), so I was happy to see UT3 gameplay showing a solid 60fps non-stop dropping down to 59 or 58 from time to time for a second in very stressfull situations. After installing the UT3 'physicx' package, which includes some really nice physicx maps I found out that 'tornado', an UT3 map with an ACTUAL tornado running through the map, destroying everything as it goes and sucking up fired rounds into it in a spiral fashion my FPS just DIED, even with the physicx enabled. note: 'died' is defined by me with my fps going from approx. 50 start of match to 14 halfway through and looking at tornado + firing rounds of flak/pulse/rockets at it.

Regarding the 2 6pin power connectors on the card I personally had no problem with that as my PSU happened to have 2 of those and I do not plan to go SLI any time soon anyway. (that would require me to get a new PSU anyway since its only 650w).

I agree that the card SHOULD outperform the 8800 series cards, so the fact it doesn't is disappointing at the least. I also bought this card over any 8800 card however due to the price.
having a card in your machine that labels 9800GTX for less money than a card that labels 8800GTS despite the 8800 outperforming it a little still also has some value, atleast in my point of view.

I personally upgraded from a 2.4ghz 512mb DDR1 AGP 7600GS to 3.16ghz duo, 4gb DDR3 and this lovely 9800GTX so ofcourse from my history its hard to judge it for its next/current-gen status, since my only experience with computers has been yesterdays-yesterday-gen stuff.

Anyway, I just wanted to say I really enjoyed your review, keep up the good work!