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ECS GeForce 9800 GTX+ Hydra SLI
Posted by Hilbert Hagedoorn on: 09/08/2008 01:00 PM [ 0 comment(s) ]
1 - ECS 9800 GT+ Hydra Sli Intro
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| Product: | ECS GeForce 9800 GTX+ Hydra SLI |
| Manufacturer: | ECS Elitegroup |
| SKU code: | - |
| Information: | ECS |
| Street price: | 549 USD |
It's always interesting to see manufacturers with different things in their product designs. ECS always has been known as an OEM manufacturer. Last year an interesting shift was made. They started entering the retail and e-tail market. That means a new marketing approach, yet also new products. They did so with success and now have moved onward into a somewhat more enthusiast based product model. Today we for example see a water-cooled kit, pre-modified with two GeForce 9800 GTX+ cards, and it's called .. Hydra..
Quite an astounding kit as well as price wise, though more expensive due to water-cooling it still a very competitive kit. Basically you'll receive two pre-modified GeForce 9800 GTX+ products and a water-cooling kit that is supplied by Thermaltake. It's in fact the Thermaltake big water series that you can slide into you 5.25"drive bay easily. That's also the generic consensus for this product release .. everything should be easy.
We've actually tested the Thermaltake Bigwater product before, yet then for CPU cooling. So the GeForce cards have the water-blocks pre-equipped, the water-cooling unit slides into the drive bay. Pretty much the only thing you need to do is connect four tubing connections, fill her up, connect some wiring ... and you are good to go. That's 15 minutes tops. As our tests will show the water-cooling unit is exceptionally good for the GTX+ cards. In fact the kit cools so well that we'll be overclocking the two cards pretty far. The end result is a much faster than GeForce GTX 280 performing product.
A pretty fun kit I might say, though not very cheap definitely competitively priced. Considering one GTX+ will cost you roughly 229 USD in the store you can easily do the math. Two cards would cist you roughly 458 USD, and then you'd need to purchase a water-cooling setup plus the water-blocks. ECS will offer you all that as a kit, at a 549 USD price tag, and honestly I think that is not a bad deal considering our experiences.
What we'll do today is have a closer look at the product that is called GeForce 9800 GTX+ and the chip that is powering it. We'll handle SLI and how to install it, obviously we'll show you the product installation with the help of a photo-shoot, then obviously we look at SLI performance with the help of our benchmark suite, then overclock the rig, and last but not least, our verdict on the ECS GeForce 9800 GTX+ Hydra kit. So yeah, we have a lot of ground to cover.
Let's startup the review and please clock to the next page.
ECS GeForce GTX 560
The GeForce GTX 560 we'll review in this article comes from ECS, out of the three products GTX 560 tested today here on Guru3D.com this one is reference clocked, has a reference design and a reference cooler. So this product will be the baseline performance product. Now that does not mean a sober product contrary, baseline performance is pretty good for the money. And next to that, we all know you'll gain the most from the less expensive products one you go and tweak them.
ECS GeForce GTX 460 Black review
We review the ECS GeForce GTX 460 Black series. Within the entire scope of Fermi GPU based graphics cards from NVIDIA the GeForce GTX 460 has to be the most interesting in terms of value for money with very acceptable decent thermals and power consumption. This is why we see a lot of SKU's released for this product, with a variety of cooling and factory overclocks. ECS Elite group also release a handful of GeForce GTX 460 cards, based on the reference design, slight overclock yet also a BLACK series graphics card which is a factory overclocked model with an Arctic cooling Accelero Xtreme PRO cooler sitting on top of that GPU.
ECS GeForce GTS 250 1024MB review | test
ECS GeForce GTS 250 tested -- Today the turn goes to the folks at ECS. Ever since the past year or two they have been trying hard to get a grip in the e-tail and retail channel, and as a brand they certainly are growing. With a creative product design and marketing team they present us some fairly special designs and concepts. Today's product tested is not at all different. Though we'll stubble into a reference clocked product, there is very little little reference otherwise.
ECS GeForce 9800 GTX+ Hydra SLI
A review on the ECS GeForce 9800 GTX+ Hydra SLI. Basically you'll receive two pre-modified GeForce 9800 GTX+ products and a water-cooling kit that is supplied by Thermaltake. It's in fact the Thermaltake big water series that you can slide into you 5.25"drive bay easily. Pretty much the only thing you need to do is connect four tubing connections, fill her up, connect some wiring ... and you are good to go. That's 15 minutes tops to get a gaming performance level better than the GeForce GTX 280.
The GeForce GTX 560 we'll review in this article comes from ECS, out of the three products GTX 560 tested today here on Guru3D.com this one is reference clocked, has a reference design and a reference cooler. So this product will be the baseline performance product. Now that does not mean a sober product contrary, baseline performance is pretty good for the money. And next to that, we all know you'll gain the most from the less expensive products one you go and tweak them.
ECS GeForce GTX 460 Black review
We review the ECS GeForce GTX 460 Black series. Within the entire scope of Fermi GPU based graphics cards from NVIDIA the GeForce GTX 460 has to be the most interesting in terms of value for money with very acceptable decent thermals and power consumption. This is why we see a lot of SKU's released for this product, with a variety of cooling and factory overclocks. ECS Elite group also release a handful of GeForce GTX 460 cards, based on the reference design, slight overclock yet also a BLACK series graphics card which is a factory overclocked model with an Arctic cooling Accelero Xtreme PRO cooler sitting on top of that GPU.
ECS GeForce GTS 250 1024MB review | test
ECS GeForce GTS 250 tested -- Today the turn goes to the folks at ECS. Ever since the past year or two they have been trying hard to get a grip in the e-tail and retail channel, and as a brand they certainly are growing. With a creative product design and marketing team they present us some fairly special designs and concepts. Today's product tested is not at all different. Though we'll stubble into a reference clocked product, there is very little little reference otherwise.
ECS GeForce 9800 GTX+ Hydra SLI
A review on the ECS GeForce 9800 GTX+ Hydra SLI. Basically you'll receive two pre-modified GeForce 9800 GTX+ products and a water-cooling kit that is supplied by Thermaltake. It's in fact the Thermaltake big water series that you can slide into you 5.25"drive bay easily. Pretty much the only thing you need to do is connect four tubing connections, fill her up, connect some wiring ... and you are good to go. That's 15 minutes tops to get a gaming performance level better than the GeForce GTX 280.