XFX GeForce 9800 GX2

Overall then, if you're after the fastest single card solution on the market, the GeForce 9800 GX2 is it and if you don't have an nForce motherboard, it's currently the only way to enable SLI technology on other motherboards and could quite possibly be the fastest graphics solution in that situation as well, given some of the performance differences between the GeForce 9800 GX2 and the Radeon HD 3870 X2. If you do have an nForce motherboard and aren't likely to suffer from the documented heat problems, there are options available for less money that deliver similar performance in most scenarios, but the GeForce 9800 GX2 isn't really about delivering value for money. What it is about is delivering the fastest graphics card on the market and, in that respect it delivers. And what's more, Nvidia will soon release a driver to enable Quad SLI on a pair of GeForce 9800 GX2s to potentially deliver more performance than three GeForce 8800 GTX/Ultra cards – we just hope Quad SLI is better than it was last time.

The XFX 9800GX2 so far has left a good impression in my mind. Of course, only having it for a couple of days and having to release a review did not let me play with it as much as I would have liked to. I did run some other games on it including Microsoft’s demanding Flight X Acceleration at 1920x1200 and the game was much more fluid than on the 8800 Ultra XXX. The biggest benefit of the card for me right now is I have SLI power on a non NVIDIA chipset.

Both the 9800 GX2 and 790i impressed us greatly. There were a few minor design niggles which may bother some consumers but if you want the fastest graphics card available and a killer motherboard as the foundation of your system then look no further than the GX2/790i Ultra combination.

The real star of the show however seems to be GeForce 8800 GT SLI which came very close to the performance of the 9800 GX2 for a lot less cash. Certainly 8800 GT SLI offered a much better gaming experience than the ATI Radeon HD 3870 X2. Considering that 8800 GT SLI is $200 less expensive than the 9800 GX2, and less than an ATI Radeon HD 3870 X2 as well, makes it an excellent value. Still when it comes to “single” card solutions, the 9800 GX2 is faster than the current king of the mountain 8800 GTX, albeit tremendously more expensive as well.

Except for Crysis, GeForce 9800 GX2 Quad SLI provides no real gameplay advantages and quite frankly we do not see Quad SLI benefitting much else right now. And haven’t we all played through Crysis enough times by now? A single GeForce 9800 GX2 is able to accelerate “demanding” titles like the shader-intensive Jericho and the tremendously popular Call of Duty 4 quite well; adding another GX2 does not provide gaming improvements to justify the cost. The only game that does possibly call for Quad SLI is Crysis; and even then AA higher resolutions is still not a reality due to the 9800 GX2’s limited memory amount and bus width.