XFX GeForce 9800 GTX Black Edition review - 2 - It's a G92

Underneath the clothes

The GeForce 9800 GTX is based on the same microprocessor as the GeForce 9800 GX2 and for that matter the same as GeForce 8800 GTS 512MB. They're all products developed with a chip called G92 (codename).

The G92 silicon is based on NVIDIA's newer 0.65nm silicon. It is a respin chip based on last years architecture from the GeForce 8800 series. See while this GPU architecture is 95% the same as the good old G80 (GTS/GTX/Ultra) core there are some very distinct differences

The first being the fabrication process. It was moved from 90nm towards 65nm, meaning a smaller die-size, likely resulting in lower core voltages, better energy efficiency and perhaps better clock speeds. Important to know is that the G92 is based on the same chip that the 8800 GTS 512MB has, which means that the GPU on the 9800 GTX also has 128 shader processors.

How many transistors do the NVIDIA GeForce 9800 GTX GPUs have you ask ? 754 million transistors.

Interestingly, if you take a peek at the clock speeds you'd might even think that one G92 GPU could beat a GTX. Well shader processors are not the only part of the equation, because at the end of the pipeline there are these things called ROPs, and that's where the old GTS (20 ROPs), and this G92 (16 ROPs) become a little castrated compared to the GTX (24 ROPs).

Next to that, the G92 is utilizing memory differently compared to the older 8800 GTX. The 8800 GTX is addressing the memory bus faster (384-bit) as opposed to the G92 with 256-bit, and that's less memory bandwidth to play around with.

In reality the performance differential between the two cards is small though, as our benchmarks will show. Though higher resolutions with high AA levels would give the older 8800 GTX with more memory and a faster memory bus the advantage.

A question that I hear a lot is why is the 9800 GTX 512MB a series 9 product, and the 8800 GTS 512MB based on the same G92 graphics core, a series 8 product? My answer: I have no idea other than the fact that a Series 9 product sounds better (marketing wise). The G92 based 8800 GTS should probably have been called 9800 GTS or GS as people in the stores right now are really confused.

So in summary, the new features of G92 opposed to the G80: Smaller 65nm fabrication process, silicon optimizations (compression algorithms), usage of 256-bit memory, and compared to the older GTS models a higher shader processor count at 128 sub-cores. The core frequency runs at 675 MHz, the shader processors at 1675 MHz and the memory at 2200 MHz effectively (70.4 Gbps memory bandwith); mind you that these are reference speeds.

Also the new Series 9 cards are Hybrid Power ready, meaning on future Hybrid mainboards this card can deactivate itself (saving power). One more advantage for the 9800 GTX is that you can go three-way SLI with it.

The day the Radeon HD 4850 arrived ... hail the GeForce 9800 GTX+

To counteract the new Radeon 4850 products NVIDIA decided to swiftly create another SKU in the market called NVIDIA GeForce 9800 GTX+

Pretty much it is a faster clocked NVIDIA GeForce 9800 GTX, and next to that ... the price is dropping pretty significantly towards a suggested retail price of $229 USD. Even better news, the GeForce 9800 GTX will drop towards 199 USD, matching the Radeon HD 4850. You just have to like the competition as it's definitely going to be interesting to purchase a higher specced mid-range card as they'll get you excellent performance for the money you pay.

The GeForce 9800 GTX+ takes the G92-based GeForce 9800 GTX and offers value for value conscious gamers. Key product points:

• GeForce 9800 GTX+ is the best single card price/performance at $229; the original GeForce 9800 GTX will transition to $199
• Shader Processor clock of 1836MHz and graphics core clock of 738MHz
• GeForce PhysX support. World’s only physics API for both the CPU and the GPU!
• Support for CUDA-based applications, including Folding@Home and Badaboom video transcoding applications.
• Support for 2-way and 3-way SLI

The card we received from NVIDIA is probably the fastest card on the market today, the XFX GeForce 9800 GTX Black Edition. This little fucker is clocked at insane speeds, even higher clocks than the new GeForce 9800 GTX +.