Nvidia GeForce 9800 GTX+

Verdict:

A die-shrink, a boost in clock speed and a huge price drop, but is this enough to take on the Radeon HD 4800 series?

Just when you thought that Nvidia’s nomenclature couldn’t venture any further into the realms of eye-watering bewilderment, it’s announced yet another naming variant for you to add to your expanding mental list of numbers, acronyms and suffixes. This time there’s a ‘+’ on the end of GeForce 9800 GTX - as you’d imagine, this means that it’s slightly quicker than the standard 9800 GTX.

Panic not, as unlike some of Nvidia’s recent GPU launches, such as the original GeForce 9800 GTX (which was virtually indistinguishable from the 512MB 8800 GTS, apart from 3-Way SLI support and a faster GPU clock), the 9800 GTX+ is actually a new chip.

The 9800 GTX+ has 55nm transistors, compared to the 65nm transistors used on the old GeForce 9800 GTX. These smaller transistors not only switch faster, but they also require less power, meaning that the 9800 GTX+ can be clocked at a faster clock speed without needing extra cooling. In fact we had to clearly labely the 9800 GTX+ with a marker pen when it was in the Labs, as it looks identical to the old 9800 GTX.

As you can see, the GeForce 9800 GTX+ has a core clock speed of 738MHz, while its 128 stream processors are clocked at 1,836MHz. Comparatively, a standard 9800 GTX has a core clock speed of 675MHz, with the stream processors clocked at 1,688MHz. The 9800 GTX+ has the same 512MB of GDDR3 memory clocked at 550MHz (1.1GHz effective) as the 9800 GTX.

WARNING - PRICE CUT ON GEFORCE 9800 GTX SOON

The big deal with the 9800 GTX+ is its price, as Nvidia claims that it will cost $229US ex VAT (around £136.30 inc VAT) when it’s released on or around 15 July. This pitches the 9800 GTX+ squarely between the new Radeon HD 4850 and HD 4870. At the same time, Nvidia is also planning to drop the price of a standard 9800 GTX to $199US ex VAT (£118.46 inc VAT), placing it in direct competition with the Radeon HD 4850.

PERFORMANCE

Click here to open the benchmark results (opens in separate window)

The extra clock speed of the 9800 GTX+ was enough to give it a clear performance lead over the old 9800 GTX in all but one of our test games. The odd game out was ArmA: Armed Assault, which ran slower on the 9800 GTX+ than with the 9800 GTX at 1,680 x 1,050. However, upping the resolution saw the 9800 GTX+ score a 46fps average compared to the 44fps average of the 9800 GTX, while both cards had the same minimum frame rate. The two new Radeons had noticeably lower frame rates in ArmA. Although the Radeon HD 4870 just about kept up, at £185, it’s a lot more expensive than the 9800 GTX+.

However, despite the fact that in every other game the 9800 GTX+ was a notch faster than the 9800 GTX, the HD 4870 had it comprehensively beaten, thoroughly justifying its higher price.

The 9800 GTX+ did prove the best sub-£150 card on test in Crysis, with its minimum of 20fps and average of 27fps at 1,650 x 1,080 with 2x AA beating the HD 4850 and its minimum of 19fps and average of 24fps. It’s a close call though, and even if we take Nvidia’s claimed retail price as true, the HD 4850 is still a touch cheaper.

In Call of Duty 4 the 9800 GTX, GTX+ and HD 4850 were extremely close. At 1,680 x 1,050 with 2x AA and maximum AF, the 9800 GTX+ had a minimum of 43fps compared to the 36fps of the HD 4850. However, at 1,920 x 1,200 with 4x AA and maximum AF, the HD 4850 come out top. Its minimum of 30fps and average of 48fps is slightly better than the 29fps minimum and 46fps average of the 9800 GTX+. We surmise that the 9800 GTX+ has more stream processing power, but that the memory-use efficiency of the HD 4850 helps maintain performance at high resolutions.

The same pattern was repeated in Race Driver: GRID, with the 9800 GTX+ running 4-5fps faster than the HD 4850 at 1,680 x 1,050 with 2x MSAA, but not so at 1,920 x 1,200 with 4x MSAA.

FOLDING PERFORMANCE

Now that Nvidia supports Folding@Home with the new 6.12beta8 client, we also tested folding performance. However, while the driver for Nvidia's spangly new GeForce GTX 280 and GTX 260 cards works seamlessly with Folding@Home, graphics cards based on G80 or G90 have to use a special CUDA driver for Folding@Home.

This driver is extremely flaky in Vista, having trouble rendering the desktop and playing video. Gaming performance seems to be unaffected, but it can't distinguish between game code and folding code so you have to manually close the folding client before gaming or else take a massive frame rate hit.

The 9800 GTX+ produced 5,445ppd (points per day), compared to the 4,986ppd of the 9800 GTX. ATI cards work on a different project, which yeilds less pdd, so the scores aren’t directly comparable. When folding, our test system consumed a total of 310W with the 9800 GTX+ installed, but this dropped to 307W with the 9800 GTX installed.

POWER CONSUMPTION

While the difference between the 9800 GTX+ and the older 9800 GTX is small, it shows that any power saving gained from the die-shrink of the 9800 GTX+ GPU is counteracted by the extra clock speed. When gaming, our PC consumed 370W with the GTX+ installed, compared to just 354W with the 9800 GTX. Like the 9800 GTX, the GTX+ has two 6-pin PCI-E connectors.

CONCLUSION

There’s nothing like some healthy competition to bring down the price of technology, and Nvidia is clearly worried about the threat of the Radeon HD 4850 and 4870. It all comes down to price: the Radeon HD 4870 stomps on the 9800 GTX+ for performance, so the 9800 GTX+ needs to be much cheaper in order to compete with the Radeon HD 4850. The GeForce 9800 GTX+ is a touch faster than the Radeon HD 4850 in most tests, but not by much, so price-wise, it needs to be within touching distance if it’s to be worth buying. We expect the GeForce 9800 GTX+ to launch on or around 15 July, so we'll have to wait until then for confirmed pricing.

Test kit 3GHz Intel Core 2 Extreme QX6850 overclocked to 3.33GHz, Asus Maximus Extreme, 2GB Patriot PC3-15000 DDR3 RAM, Windows Vista 32-bit; Nvidia GeForce 9800 GTX+: ForceWare 177.39 BETA; Nvidia GeForce 9800 GTX: ForceWare 175.19; Nvidia Folding@Home tests: ForceWare 177.35 BETA; ATI Radeon HD 4850 and HD 4870: Catalyst 8.6

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