9800GX2 30% faster than 8800 Ultra

From TH's:

"We don't know yet if the GeForce 9800GX2, which is supposed to be 30%
faster than the 8800 Ultra, will support Quad SLI configurations.

The expected price: around $449 US. Expected announcement date: February
14, 2008."

Something isn't right: Is thee comment that the 9800GX2 is 30% faster
than 8800 Ultra *SLI*, or a single 8800 Ultra? They do not mention SLI
in the above comment and are unclear.

If the 980GX2 is only 30% faster than a single 8800 Ultra, being two
cards, that implies a single 9800 card is about 2/3rds as fast as a
single 8000GTX. That can't be correct!

9800GX2 basically consists of two 8800GTS 512MB cards in SLI. Clock speed
may have even been reduced to fit in a tighter thermal envelope. As you
know, SLI scaling can vary greatly from game to game, and from OS to OS.
"30%", or "at least 30%" as reported by some other websites like HardOCP, is
a meaningless number.

Is that an optical S/PDIF port I see on the back?

--
"War is the continuation of politics by other means.
It can therefore be said that politics is war without
bloodshed while war is politics with bloodshed."


"Mr.E Solved!" wrote in message
...
From TH's:

"We don't know yet if the GeForce 9800GX2, which is supposed to be 30%
faster than the 8800 Ultra, will support Quad SLI configurations.

The expected price: around $449 US. Expected announcement date: February
14, 2008."

Something isn't right: Is thee comment that the 9800GX2 is 30% faster than
8800 Ultra *SLI*, or a single 8800 Ultra? They do not mention SLI in the
above comment and are unclear.

If the 980GX2 is only 30% faster than a single 8800 Ultra, being two
cards, that implies a single 9800 card is about 2/3rds as fast as a single
8000GTX. That can't be correct!

First of One wrote:
9800GX2 basically consists of two 8800GTS 512MB cards in SLI. Clock speed
may have even been reduced to fit in a tighter thermal envelope. As you
know, SLI scaling can vary greatly from game to game, and from OS to OS.
"30%", or "at least 30%" as reported by some other websites like HardOCP, is
a meaningless number.

Is that an optical S/PDIF port I see on the back?


That's all very nice, but it doesn't answer the question of what that
30% increase is referring to, a single 8800 or two 8800's!

Remember the 9800GX2 is marketed as a single card, so they mean 30% faster
than a single 8800 Ultra. Don't be silly. Remember the nVidia engineers are
not magicians, even with guys like Tarolli working in the company.
--
"War is the continuation of politics by other means.
It can therefore be said that politics is war without
bloodshed while war is politics with bloodshed."


"Mr.E Solved!" wrote in message
...
First of One wrote:
9800GX2 basically consists of two 8800GTS 512MB cards in SLI. Clock speed
may have even been reduced to fit in a tighter thermal envelope. As you
know, SLI scaling can vary greatly from game to game, and from OS to OS.
"30%", or "at least 30%" as reported by some other websites like HardOCP,
is a meaningless number.

Is that an optical S/PDIF port I see on the back?


That's all very nice, but it doesn't answer the question of what that 30%
increase is referring to, a single 8800 or two 8800's!

First of One wrote:
Remember the 9800GX2 is marketed as a single card, so they mean 30% faster
than a single 8800 Ultra.

Then the 9800GX2, which is two cards, is only a third faster than a
single card. (But maybe the same price)

All the headaches of SLI, none of the advantages! Sounds like a very
uncompelling purchase.

"Mr.E Solved!" wrote in message
. ..
First of One wrote:
Remember the 9800GX2 is marketed as a single card, so they mean 30%
faster than a single 8800 Ultra.

Then the 9800GX2, which is two cards, is only a third faster than a single
card. (But maybe the same price)

All the headaches of SLI, none of the advantages! Sounds like a very
uncompelling purchase.

Being an owner of a 7950GX2, I'd have to agree with that sentiment. I'm
definitely going to be staying away from the 9800GX2 and any subsequent
versions.

RF.

The Tomshardware article gave the 9800GX2 a pricetag of $449. It's cheaper
than a 8800Ultra ($660 at Newegg), and cheaper than buying two 8800GTS 512MB
cards. If street pricing can be kept at $449 (and that's nVidia's flagship
offering), then it's reasonable.

--
"War is the continuation of politics by other means.
It can therefore be said that politics is war without
bloodshed while war is politics with bloodshed."


"Mr.E Solved!" wrote in message
. ..
First of One wrote:
Remember the 9800GX2 is marketed as a single card, so they mean 30%
faster than a single 8800 Ultra.

Then the 9800GX2, which is two cards, is only a third faster than a single
card. (But maybe the same price)

All the headaches of SLI, none of the advantages! Sounds like a very
uncompelling purchase.

All the headaches of SLI, none of the advantages! Sounds like a very
uncompelling purchase.

Being an owner of a 7950GX2, I'd have to agree with that sentiment. I'm
definitely going to be staying away from the 9800GX2 and any subsequent
versions.

Me too. Screw nvidia. If they want to sell us a oldgen card and make
us wait for a nextgen card, then I'll wait and see what AMD/ATI has to
offer. Still hoping ATI will pull it together and release something beyond
the 3870.

rms

Yeah, AMD has a 3870 X2 coming up soon...

What nVidia has done is giving the older G80-based cards a die-shrink to 65
nm. If the 9800GX2 at the rumored $449 is the flagship, then the single-GPU
cards like the 9800GTX will be cheaper. This means we'll see better
performance at each price point.

Feel free to wait. I am just glad nVidia isn't going the way of Intel. Intel
is pulling away with its advanced 45 nm QX9650 CPUs: exciting, but quite
irrelevant at $1100 apiece.

--
"War is the continuation of politics by other means.
It can therefore be said that politics is war without
bloodshed while war is politics with bloodshed."


"rms" wrote in message
et...
All the headaches of SLI, none of the advantages! Sounds like a very
uncompelling purchase.

Being an owner of a 7950GX2, I'd have to agree with that sentiment.
I'm definitely going to be staying away from the 9800GX2 and any
subsequent versions.

Me too. Screw nvidia. If they want to sell us a oldgen card and make
us wait for a nextgen card, then I'll wait and see what AMD/ATI has to
offer. Still hoping ATI will pull it together and release something
beyond the 3870.

rms

"First of One" wrote in message
...
Yeah, AMD has a 3870 X2 coming up soon...

What nVidia has done is giving the older G80-based cards a die-shrink to
65 nm. If the 9800GX2 at the rumored $449 is the flagship, then the
single-GPU cards like the 9800GTX will be cheaper. This means we'll see
better performance at each price point.

Feel free to wait. I am just glad nVidia isn't going the way of Intel.
Intel is pulling away with its advanced 45 nm QX9650 CPUs: exciting, but
quite irrelevant at $1100 apiece.

--
"War is the continuation of politics by other means.
It can therefore be said that politics is war without
bloodshed while war is politics with bloodshed."

The difference between the 3870X2 and the 9800GX2 is that the ATI offering
has both GPUs on one PCB. That'll make for a lot less heat, which
definitely is a limiting factor with the dual-PCB design of nVidia's
offerings. Which is why they had to underclock the cores on the 7950GX2 by
about 15% versus a normal 7900.

Crossfire also works differently than SLI, so you get benefits from it no
matter what the game, I think. At least, it's not as finicky.

I do agree that if the price is accurate, that bodes well for other
G92-based offerings.

RF.