ZOTAC GeForce 9800 GTX

On April 1st, 2008 NVIDIA will officially launch the GeForce 9800 GTX. It's been over sixteen months since the GTX series was last launched, and with such a successful debut of the 8800 GTX back in 2006 there is a lot of skepticism surrounding the new 9800 GTX. Enthusiasts may recall that the last time around NVIDIA launched their new generation of graphic cards with the GTX and GTS models, and later followed up with some mid-range offerings and one slightly faster "Ultra". This time around though, the playbook looked a lot different. First came the lower mid-level 9600 GT, and then the ultra-high level though, the playbook looked a lot different. First came the lower mid-level 9600 GT, and then the ultra-high level GeForce 9800 GX2 which utilized two G92 GPU cores. Benchmark Reviews has been fortunate enough to test the performance of ZOTAC's new GeForce 9800 GTX 512MB video card in this article, model ZT-98XES2P-FSP.

It seems like it was just yesterday that I bought my first discrete graphics card to outfit an overclocked Cyrix M2-300 6x86MX-based computer. Back in those Windows 98 (first edition) days of 1998 the term GeForce wasn't even in existence yet, and NVIDIA was called referred to as nVidia. So when I bought my first computer late that year, I would have never thought Quake II played on my RIVA TNT2 AGP video card would mark the last time I would spend money in an arcade. This was nearly ten years ago and since that time NVIDIA has developed several successful GeForce product lines, including the newly launched 9th generation.

In the past, Benchmark Reviews has compared GeForce 8800 Graphics Performance: GT vs GTS vs GTX. In that article, it was shown that a more affordable 8800 GT could easily beat a heavily-overclocked 8800 GTS and close the gap with far more expensive 8800 GTX. Not much later we tested the ZOTAC GeForce 8800 GT AMP! Edition HDMI video card which in many tests performed very near to the more expensive 8800 GTX. But now that the 9800 series has its third product offering it seems as though the 8800 series is so... last generation. But don't think that the new name will somehow convince us that it will be an inherently better product; we still plan to test just how the new 9800 GTX fits into all of this.

Since several of the former heavyweight products are now threatened with replacement by the new GeForce 9800 GTX, there seems to be a lot of concern as to how well it performs against the older 8800 GTX and Ultra which it supersedes. Gamers want to know if the GX2 is worth the money, or if they should wait. Making this decision a little more difficult is yet another change to the market. As if there wasn't enough competition already in the high-end segment of the 3D graphics market, on April 1st there will be one more addition to the 9thgeneration family named GeForce 9800 GTX.

Powered by the NVIDIA G92 graphics processor originally introduced with the GeForce 8800 GT series, the ZOTAC GeForce 9800 GTX video card takes the GeForce family one step higher. The new PCI Express 2.0 interface sends data at rates up to 5.0 GBps, which then uses the memory bus to build a 512 MB video frame buffer for smoother performance and realistic textures in PC games. The 1100 MHz GDDR3 video memory on the GTX communicates with the 675 MHz G92 graphics processor through a 256-bit memory interface. For an extra performance boost during intense gaming situations, NVIDIA has designed the GTX to offer 128 stream processors operating at 1688 MHz.

Compared to the older PCI Express x16 bus which it replaces, the new PCI Express 2.0 interface delivers 5.0 GBps of graphical bandwidth which amounts to twice the data throughput over the previous generation. In the new generation of PCI Express 2.0 compatible motherboards, such as the Gigabyte's GA-X48T-DQ6 we used for testing, this new technology delivers bleeding edge graphics while remaining backwards compatible with older PCI Express x16 motherboards.

Many hardware enthusiasts have already read the early leaked reviews surrounding the 9800 GTX, and have been asking some important questions about NVIDIA's newest product. Because the list of improvements is not exactly a major step up from previous products, gamers are wondering why they should make the move. Here's NVIDIA's answer to that question:

• Unprecedented performance at the $299-$349 price point.
• NVIDIA 3-way SLI Technology for the ultimate performance in DirectX 9, DirectX 10 and OpenGL games.
• NVIDIA HybridPower^TM technology - users can switch off the graphics card while not playing intense 3D games, saving power.
• NVIDIA PureVideo HD technology - enjoy all your HD movies with smooth playback, high image quality, and advanced post processing.

A few months back we reviewed ZOTAC's GeForce 8800 GT AMP! Edition HDMI video card, which used a DVI-to-HDMI adapter and S/PDIF audio input cable to stream full HDMI audio and video output for the first time in any NVIDIA product. Then just weeks ago the GeForce 9800 GX2 was launched with the same HDMI functionality and features. HDMI is back again (although not a native interface) in the GeForce 9800 GTX.

Benchmark Reviews will test the new ZOTAC GeForce 9800 GTX discrete graphics card (model ZT-98XES2P-FSP) against the most widely used NVIDIA products it competes against. Below is a chart with the most recent high-performance offerings from NVIDIA.

About the Company: ZOTAC International (MCO) Limited

ZOTAC International (MCO) Limited was established in 2006 with a mission to deliver superb quality of NVIDIA graphic solutions to the industry. It has strong backup from parent group, PC Partner Ltd. Headquartered in Hong Kong, factory in mainland China and regional sales offices in Europe, Asia Pacific and North America. The support ZOTAC provides is currently the largest of its kind around the world.

With 40 SMT lines, 6,000 workers and 100,000 square-feet meter, ZOTAC features a full array of state-of-the-art facilities and machinery. In addition, ZOTAC has over 130 R&D professionals in Hong Kong, China and warranty and service center in strategic countries to enable effective and efficient worldwide as well as localized sales and marketing supports.

ZOTAC with NVIDIA not only means superb quality, it also means high performance, absolute reliability and great value. In the past year, ZOTAC was compared and tested by several influential members in the media and have proven its products are good quality, worth-to-buy graphic cards in the market. With the product features of overclocked performance, excellent cooling properties and unique packaging ZOTAC products definitely exceed users' expectations.

ZOTAC's commitment to our user is to bring the latest products quickly to the market with the best value. Doubtless to say ZOTAC is the right choice for those who require high-quality graphic solutions. For additional information please visit the ZOTAC website.

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