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The XFX 9800 GX2 (model PV-T98U-ZHF9) reminded me of that space ship from the beginning of the movie Space Balls. It just seems to go on forever. Make no mistake: this is a monster card. Not much else come to mind when I first laid my eyes on the XFX 9800 GX2: I just thought to myself: This is one serious video card. Its big. Its heavy. Handling the card lends you the certitude that as you soon as you plug it into your system you are going to see fireworks go off; the XFX 9800GX2 just somehow communicates the impression that this a top-end card through its lack of flash and raw dimensions.

As mentioned, the 9800 GX2 is dual-PCB, double-width GPU sandwich. As you can see from below, the front and the back of the card look pretty much the same, which is fairly unusual as video cards go.  In the middle of the card, a heavy-duty fan and heat sink connects both PCB's together, working to cool both G92-based GPU's.

The 9800 GX2 also has a few LED's inside the plastic shroud, which is a nice touch. There is a set around the power connectors, and a pair towards the end of the card. Besides looking cool, they also help out by communicating any troubles by blinking, or changing color.

Following are some of the XFX 9800 GX2's vital numbers. Keep in mind that while the 9800GX2 has 256 stream processors, a 512 bit memory interface, and a 1GB of GDDR3, it has half of each of these resources on each separate PCB, which limits their performance, in the same manner as it does with the HD3870X2:

Left: Size comparison between the Asus EAH3870X2.         Right: Size comparison between the XFX 8800 GTS 512MB.

As with most recent video cards, the XFX 9800 GX2 supports DirectX10 and Shader Model 4.0, as well as conforms to the new PCIe 2.0 standard. Beyond gaming, if you ever feel like watching a movie you'll be all set with the 9800 GX2 as it has the second generation / revision of the NVIDIA's PureVideo HD technology, which allows you to play HD DVD and Blu-ray movies with GPU-based hardware acceleration. The HDMI connector port on the 9800 GX2 allows for audio and high-def video (with a maximum resolution of 2560x1600) and audio to be sent to your HDTV.

This 9800GX2 is also capable of HybridPower, if you have a motherboard that is capable of this feature. HybridPower allows for you to use Windows and other applications using your motherboard's integrated GPU, while keeping the 9800GX2 in a standby mode to only be activated when 3D mode is required. This is nice feature to have for a card of this magnitude, because it does use a significant amount of power.

I'm not sure about you, but I'm quite anxious to see what this 9800 GX2 can do. Let's move along.