BFG GeForce 9800 GTX OCX

When the 3870 X2 drags its feet in games that don’t scale so well, the BFG Tech GeForce 9800 GTX OCX is a faster card, but when you get into scenarios where scaling is there, the Radeon HD 3870 X2 is generally a significantly faster proposition. And because of that, I think it’s the better purchase right now in the £250 price bracket. That’s not to say that BFG Tech’s card is one that you shouldn’t consider at all – the company has worked to correct the omissions from its earlier bundles and you can now use the audio over HDMI functionality thanks to the included S/PDIF cable. It’s also one of the highest-clocked GeForce 9800 GTX cards out there—and it’s backed by an impressive warranty term—which makes it one of the best G92-based cards on the market today. It’s also the first G92-based card we’ve seen that bests the GeForce 8800 GTX in a convincing enough manner for it to be considered a replacement.

Sure you can purchase a GeForce 9800 GTX and with a bit of luck clock it towards the same level as tested today. But the OCX model ensures you two things .. the first is that the card is pre-tested for you. It is qualified to run at the advertised speeds. The second big plus if that you keep the warranty on the card with the pre-defined overclock, and these two fact together make it a golden combo. It doesn't mean that the standard overclock will bring you a heap of additional performance though, but at average I'd say a 10% performance increase is plausible.

The BFGTech GeForce 9800 GTX OCX offers no advantage over a standard-clocked GeForce 9800 GTX for the few extra dollars you will be expected to pay for it in terms of real world gameplay. So the OCX moniker seems to be more for benchmark monkeys than gamers. This time round, we have to suggest save your money and OC your on your own.

In the end what we have here is a more expensive 9800GTX which offer some amazing performance while being backed up by one of the industry’s best warranties. You get all the bangs and whistles with the HDMI and SPDIF connectors and even have the potential of higher overclocks with a fan profile which keeps the card a bit cooler than stock. What more is there to ask for? Well, the price is higher and the card itself is a bit louder but that doesn’t stop this card from being highly recommended for those of you who want a great PC gaming experience.

The BFG GeForce 9800 GTX OCX 512MB graphics card is about as good as it gets with NVIDIA's current line of graphics cards matching top performance with a reasonable price while still utilizing just a single GPU for optimal performance. If you do want to stretch into the world of SLI you can add one or two more cards to your system as long as you have a 680i/780i/790i motherboard and some more cash; but usually we prefer faster single GPUs. We can't quite shake the feeling that NVIDIA and AMD have more plans for GPUs not far on the horizon, but if you want a great graphics card today, the BFG 9800 GTX OCX is a fantastic option.