Galaxy GeForce 9800 GTX+ 512MB review - Introduction

It certainly has been a long time since we reviewed a product or two from that NVIDIA AIB called Galaxy Technology. Certainly a somewhat smaller company, but each and every time we review one of their products, there's some sort of revelation going on.

Galaxy is good in brand recognition and most of all they are very stringent in product differentiation. Sure, they hog out standard products into the market as well, but their R&D is always working on something special, something a little out of the ordinary... and I know I've stated that many times, but it's the fun stuff we seek out in graphics cards so much.

Face it, most AIB's purchase their graphics cards, slap a sticker on it, insert a game and sell it. That's the reality for 90% of the current VGA graphics business. And that makes it a little bit of a dull business the past year or two. I feel a nicely designed graphics card is like good cuisine, tickling the senses and getting us excited. So this is where Galaxy technology comes in. Recently they refreshed their products a little and they asked If we'd be interested in reviewing some of them. The first being their new GeForce 9800 GTX+, released months ago, and in the mid-range segment, still one of my favorite cards. The 9800 GTX+ update was released back in July 2008 if memory serves me right, and entailed a newly created SKU with some higher clocks, note the GPU die-size has been shrunk to 55nm (which was 65nm). You guys can probably all remember the standard design right? The big black cooler, 11" PCB... a long but great value card.

Now then... have a look and see what Galaxy technology did with the card... that's something else isn't it? Custom PCB, custom cooling, custom bracket, HDMI output, black DVI+backplate... I sometimes wonder why a small company can consistently push out striking products like that and the bigger AIBs mainly focus on the reference design.

Most certainly this is a product we want to review, this is Guru3D stuff for sure. Over the next few pages we'll have a little chat about their 98000 GTX+ architecture, then dive into a photo-shoot, technology briefing and obviously a gaming test with the hottest gaming titles on the globe, next page please.