GeForce 9800 GX2 pics & details leaked - Time to raid the savings

[Guest Jordan]

NVIDIA's yet-to-be released GeForce 9800 GX2 in the "flesh." We reveal some of the specs and what should be expected.

 

 

The best way to think of the GeForce 9800 GX2 card is as an 8800 GPU that has been die shrunk to 65nm and placed in an SLI configuration in a "single" card. The 9800 GX2 is very reminiscent of 7950 GX2 of days past. (And we loved the 7950 GX2 at launch, but terrible support and diminishing returns soon painted it as one of NVIDIA’s biggest failures since the 5800 series.)

 

 

The GeForce 9800 GX2 will launch in late February or early March as it now stands and will replace the 8800 Ultra (single GPU) card in NVIDIA's high-end product line up. The 9800 GX2 is said to be at least 30% faster than a 8800 Ultra. While it is not clear from the pictures below, we are told it will support "Quad SLI."

 

 

GeForce 9800 GX2 Front

 

 

GeForce 9800 GX2 Back

 

 

GeForce 9800 GX2

 

1GB Frame Buffer

 

Two PCBs

 

Two 65nm GPUs Total

 

256 Stream Processors Total

 

All of the information here comes from sources overseas that we consider trustworthy. Obviously there are some specifications that could be a bit more clear, especially on the memory bus. We would expect to see two 768MB frame buffers per GPU here, but that is not what is spelled out. We are guessing 512MB per GPU currently. Should we learn of any changes and/or corrections we will certainly update this page and inform our readers on our daily news page.

 

Source: http://enthusiast.hardocp.com/article.html?art=MTQzOSwxLCxoZW50aHVzaWFzdA

 

That card is going to be three things.

1, Huge in power

2, Huge in size

3, Very, very expensive.

[RoadKill]

I think it gave me wood, but there's no way it will be a sensible card to buy... however look forward to them on a 3DMark ORB near you soon!

[gaggle64]

Sometimes I get a little jealous that I don't have the kind of income to aloow me to indulge in such trinkets. Then I remember that this'll be obsolete in six months anyway, and settle back down to my game of The Longest Journey (Recommended specs: Pentium II, 266 mhz, 64 MB ram, 3d accelarator card with 4 mb ram)

[AshMat]

Crazy, i didn't think the 9 series was coming that soon either, then again, they've exhausted the 8.

[Guest Jordan]

I think we'll be seeing a new 8800GTX at some point between now and March.

 

Infact i would be incredibly supprised if we didn't. Also weirdly, why isn't this a 8800 series card when its seemingly based off 8800 tech? You know call it the 8850 GX2 or something.

[AshMat]

I think we'll be seeing a new 8800GTX at some point between now and March.

 

Infact i would be incredibly supprised if we didn't. Also weirdly, why isn't this a 8800 series card when its seemingly based off 8800 tech? You know call it the 8850 GX2 or something.

 

Ahh the fun and confusion.

[RoadKill]

I think we'll be seeing a new 8800GTX at some point between now and March.

 

Infact i would be incredibly supprised if we didn't. Also weirdly, why isn't this a 8800 series card when its seemingly based off 8800 tech? You know call it the 8850 GX2 or something.

 

I completely agree, seems silly..

 

nVIDIA's naming as of late has made fuck-all sense, and it would be a nightmare for the everyday guy to figure out what the fuck is going on...

[Apple_NdiB]

It's nice to know it supports Quad SLI, lest any drug baron PC gamers degrade themselves by only having 3 of the things.

[Konfucius]

I hope to stand corrected but isn't this card still using the G92 (or what it's called) that is also in the 8800 Series?

And didn't nVidia say something about the G100 coming out around March?

[Problematique]

This is hardly an update really. I'm pretty disappointed because I'm buildiing my machine in March-April time and I was hoping that the 9000 series proper would be out by then. The best thing this card is for is for driving down the price of the 8800 Ultra. In the end it's not a series upgrade at all, it's just an updated 8000 series card (and should be named accordingly).

 

Arf. I'm having quite a dilemma choosing my parts at the moment. Need to decide whether I'm going to go with SLi in mind (get the second board at a later stage when prices go down) or go single graphics card with a superior motherboard. It's a tough call.