NVIDIA Launches 790i Chipset & 9800 GX2 Graphics Card

Rob Williams

Editor-in-Chief
Staff member
Moderator
From our front-page news:
NVIDIA kicked off two brand-new releases today, both of which we'll take our own look at in the near-future. The 790i chipset is a variant of their 780i offering, but is tweaked to cater to the enthusiast in all regards. It's the first NVIDIA chipset to offer support for 1600FSB processors and also DDR3-2000 memory. Now that's high-end.

Also launched in the 9800 GX2, NVIDIA's "Dual-GPU" solution on a single card. Although not a truly new architecture, the GX2 essentially throws two 8800GTS 512 cards into a single GPU, and is priced right around that idea, at $600.

Our friends at HotHardware have taken a look at both of the new products and can't help but be left very impressed. The 790i board offers incredible performance and a great feature-set, while the 9800 GX2 outperforms the HD 3870 X2 by a rather sizable margin. Though the 9800 GX2 costs $150 more than the SRP for the HD 3870 X2, it's looking like it's a worthy investment if you want the absolutely best card available on the market.

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As for the GeForce 9800 GX2, it is clearly the most powerful single graphics adapter currently available. In all of our in-game benchmarks, the GeForce 9800 GX2 outpaced every other single graphics card configuration including the Radeon HD 3870 X2. It was only in 3DMark06 that the Radeon had an advantage, but that didn't translate into any benchmark wins with actual games at the high resolutions we tested.

Source: HotHardware
 

sbrehm72255

Tech Monkey
$600 is a bit rich for my liking when you can get the same performance basicly out of 2 x 8800GT in SLi for around $400 complete out the door if you have a SLi MoBo................;)

That is unless you happen to have a love for ATi which is still more expensive that 2 x 8800GT's............:)
 
Could I hack this 9800gx2 with a 650watt psu? I just put in my step up request with evga. I have read that it requires a 580 minimum, but havn't really seen anything official yet.
 
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Greg King

I just kinda show up...
Staff member
I just got my 8800 GT and I am perfectly happy with it. It's does what I need it to do on my 24" monitor and when I get a second in a few months, I can't imagine needing one for quite a while.

The 9800 GX2 looks nice but I don't have any desire (or need) for it.

Oh, and for what you have in your specs, that power supply should be enough. NVIDIA recommends a 580W minimum for that card and a 850W for two. Can't wait to hear about your experience with that card.
 
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Merlin

The Tech Wizard
$600 is a bit rich for my liking when you can get the same performance basicly out of 2 x 8800GT in SLi for around $400 complete out the door if you have a SLi MoBo................;)

That is unless you happen to have a love for ATi which is still more expensive that 2 x 8800GT's............:)
I definatly agree on this.
I'm running two 8800GT in Sli
http://forums.techgage.com/showthread.php?t=3245

And when I do the automatic optimize in Crysis, it goes the Very High and I play it that way.
I did have a driver problem, actually a conflic of two video drivers and I deleted one and it works fine.

Merlin
 

sbrehm72255

Tech Monkey
Could I hack this 9800gx2 with a 650watt psu? I just put in my step up request with evga. I have read that it requires a 580 minimum, but havn't really seen anything official yet.

Amps on the 12 volt rail is more important than overall PSU wattage.

Requirements
Minimum of a 600 Watt power supply.
(Minimum recommended power supply with +12 Volt current rating of 28 Amp Amps.)
An available 6 pin PCI-E power connector and an available 8 pin PCI-E power connector
 
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