XFX GeForce 9800 GTX Black Edition review - 1 - A dark introduction

by Hilbert Hagedoorn on: 06/22/2008 01:00 PM [ ] 0 comment(s)

XFX GeForce 9800 GTX Black edition

XFX GeForce 9800 GTX Black Edition

Product:	GeForce 9800 GTX
Manufacturer:	XFX
SKU code:	PVT98FYDBU
Information:	XFX Graphics
Street price:	$249.99

XFX GeForce 9800 GTX Black edition Man I tell you, it's mayhem in the graphics arena. Who expected that shortly before summer 2008? Last week AMD delivered a can of whoopass at the doorsteps of NVIDIA with the launch of their Radeon HD 4850 series of products. A highly versatile and performing product for merely 199 USD.

NVIDIA however wouldn't be NVIDIA if they didn't adapt to the situation at hand and aim to match the performance of AMD's lovely new little gem. In fact one or two days before AMDs launch we received some info that NVIDIA would be doing three things to react on the AMD Radeon HD 4850.

Release a new SKU under GeForce 9800 GTX+
Lower prices, GTX for 199 USD, GTX+ for 229 USD
Release a new driver boosting some extra performance

All in all a really exciting time if you are in the market for a mid-range graphics card. Seriously up-to this moment the 9600 GT and 8800 GT pretty much were the two leading mid-range products under the 200 USD price range. That dynamic now has shifted, and you guys really need to thank AMD for that.

That being said, NVIDIA planned this market reaction pretty well, reviewers white-papers were ready, the driver popped out of nowhere onto the NVIDIA FTP-sites and sure .. the GeForce 9800 GTX+ was born.

Well hey, it's the stuff we live and breathe for, but today we take a little de-tour as there are products out there more interesting than that GTX+. The card being reviewed today is the XFX GeForce 9800GTX Black Edition. The fun thing is, it has even faster than GTX+ clocks and will be priced at an amazing 239-249 USD. What we'll do today is have a look at that Radeon HD 4850 performance and compare it with the default GeForce 9800 GTX and then the XFX GeForce 9800 GTX Black Edition.

Initially we also wanted to downclock the GTX BE to a GTX+ and look at that performance, but since NVIDIA already shipped out a reference GTX+ and they do claim it to have slightly better thermals due to a die-shrink, we'll do that card in a separate article.

This review will not be as in-depth though as we merely want to show you how the GeForce 9800 GTX BE roughly performs in combo with the new driver versus the Radeon 4850. So a swift overview of XFXs Black Edition offering, then the benchmarks in all mentioned conditions and then some of you guys will probably will run to the store. The XFX XXX and Black editions obviously will fall in price hard as well. I mean if they don't ... people will just buy the regular 9800 GTX or Radeon 4850 at 199 USD.

Prices for mid-range just won't get any better than this anytime soon folks. Lovely isn't it ? :)

XFX GeForce 9800 GTX Black edition
The photo is a bit dark, but it suits the theme quite well I think :)

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XFX GeForce 9800 GTX Black Edition review
A review on the XFX Black edition GeForce 9800 GTX, after reading some of you guys will probably will run to the store .. as the XFX XXX and Black editions obviously have fallen in price after AMDs Radeon 4850 launch.

XFX GeForce 9800 GX2 Black edition review
King of pre-overclocked products has to be XFX, their speed-bin of releasing OCed products is exceedingly fast. I do not think that there is an XFX product out there that is not available as a triple X edition or other series name slapped on top of it. Today will be no different, we received XFXes top of the shelf product, the GeForce 9800 GX2, the cool thing is that this is the new mystified named 'Black edition' series of cards, meaning it comes with a nice pre-overclock and an lovely game bundle.

XFX GeForce 9600 GT XXX 512MB review
A review on that XXX rated version of the GeForce 9600 GT. Hey, only XFX can implement such a name for you. XFX have a "way" of communication and getting attention. They quite honestly deliver really impressive products. Today's tested product is no different.

XFX GeForce 8800 GTS 320 MB Fatal1ty review
The Fata1ty Geforce 8800 GTS 320MB graphics card comes with it's GPU core pre-overclocked at 650 MHz and it's 320 MB memory clocked at (2x) 999 MHz. If that isn't rather radical, the Shader domain inside that graphics processor is clocked at a lovely 1620 MHz. Now if that does mean jack to you, these are the reference specs a 320 model normally has: 500 MHz core, 2x 800 MHz memory and a shader domain clock of 1200 MHz. Can you already sniff the performance increase ? That's like bacon on your eggs man.