Introduction

GeForce 9800 GT is currently the simplest model inside NVIDIA’s GeForce 9800 family. But in reality it is a GeForce 8800 GT with a new sticker. In this review we will compare the performance of this 1 GB model from Palit with current high-end video cards and also with the original GeForce 8800 GT with 512 MB and GeForce 8800 GTS with 320 MB.

GeForce 9800 GT and GeForce 8800 GT are identical: both use the same graphics chip (G92-270-A2, we will talk a little bit more about it later) – which has 112 shader processors – and run under the same clock rates: 600 MHz for the graphics chip, 1.5 GHz for the shader processors and 1.8 GHz (900 MHz x2) for the memory, which is accessed through a 256-bit interface. The only difference between them is the addition of HybridPower feature on 9800 GT (which allows the video card to be turned off when you are not playing games to save energy, if you have a compatible motherboard). Another minor feature is that GeForce 9800 GT has an SPDIF in connector for routing digital audio to the HDMI output (a DVI-to-HDMI adapter must be used, and this video card comes with one), although if you pay close attention to the printed circuit board from GeForce 8800 GT you can clearly see the place for the addition of this connector, even though it doesn’t come soldered on the card.

If you want to learn more about the architecture used on GeForce 9800 GT please read our GeForce 8 Series Architecture article. Everything that is said in this article about GeForce 8800 GT can be read as “9800 GT,” since both cards are identical.

We will talk more about the differences between GeForce 9800 GT and other current high-end video cards, but before let’s take an in-depth look at GeForce 9800 GT 1 GB from Palit, which is called “GeForce 9800 GT Super+1GB” by the manufacturer.

You can have an overall look at the reviewed card on the pictures below. We didn’t like the golden plastic cover. In our opinion it made the product to look cheap; a traditional shiny black would make the product to look more serious. But that is just our opinion. At least the color matches the memory heatsink present on the back of the card and with the copper heat-pipes that are partially exposed on the top of the card.

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Figure 1: Palit GeForce 9800 GT Super+1GB.

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Figure 2: Palit GeForce 9800 GT Super+1GB.

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Figure 3: Palit GeForce 9800 GT Super+1GB.

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Figure 4: Palit GeForce 9800 GT Super+1GB.

Pay attention for the SPDIF in connector on the left-hand side from Figure 4. As mentioned, this plug allows you to redirect digital audio to the HDMI plug, which is available through the use of a DVI-to-HDMI adapter. This video card comes with both the SPDIF cable and the DVI-to-HDMI adapter.

This video card requires the installation of one 6-pin auxiliary power connector. The product comes with the necessary adapter for you to convert a standard peripheral power plug into a 6-pin power plug if your power supply doesn’t provide one of them or if you are installing two cards in SLI and your power supply has only one auxiliary power cable for video cards.

Introduction (Cont’d)

We removed the video card cooler to take a look. As you can see in Figure 5, the cooler base is made of copper, using two thick copper heat-pipes to connect the base to the aluminum fins.

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Figure 5: Video card cooler without its plastic cover.

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Figure 6: Cooler.

On Figures 7 and 8 you can see the video card without its cooler. It uses fourteen 512-Mbit Qimonda HYB18H512321BF-10 GDDR3 chips, making its 896 MB memory (512 Mbits x 14 = 896 MB). These chips can officially work up to 1 GHz or 2 GHz DDR. On this video card the memories were running at 900 MHz or 1.8 GHz DDR, so there is 11% headroom for you to overclock the memories keeping them inside their specs. Of course you can always try to push them above their official specs.

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Figure 7: Palit GeForce 9800 GT Super+1GB with its cooler removed.

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Figure 8: Palit GeForce 9800 GT Super+1GB with its cooler removed.

In Figure 9 you have a close-up on the graphics chip used, G92-270-A2. This is the exact same graphics chip used on GeForce 8800 GT, as you can see here.

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Figure 9: GeForce 9800 GT/GeForce 8800 GT chip.

This video card comes with the full version of Tomb Raider Anniversary. With the accessories that come with this card you can convert the video output to VGA and HDMI, plus the DVI and S-Video connectors already present on the product.

Now let’s compare the specifications from GeForce 9800 GT to the other video cards we included in this review.

More Details

To make the comparison between Palit GeForce 9800 GT 1 GB and the other video cards we included in this review easier, we compiled the table below comparing the main specs from these cards. If you want to compare the specs of the reviewed video card to any other video card not included in the table below, just take a look at our NVIDIA Chips Comparison Table and on our AMD ATI Chips Comparison Table.

Since GeForce 9800 GT is a renamed GeForce 8800 GT, we included a GeForce 8800 GT with 512 MB and a GeForce 8800 GTS with 320 MB (which isn’t available in the US market anymore) in our comparison.

GPU	Core Clock	Shader Clock	Processors	Memory Clock	Memory Interface	Memory Transfer Rate	Memory	Price
GeForce GTX 280	602 MHz	1,296 MHz	240	1,107 MHz	512-bit	141.7 GB/s	1 GB GDDR3	USD 420 - 475
GeForce GTX 260	576 MHz	1,242 MHz	192	1,000 MHz	448-bit	112 GB/s	896 MB GDDR3	USD 270 - 300
GeForce 9800 GX2	600 MHz	1,500 MHz	128	1,000 MHz	256-bit	64 GB/s	1 GB GDDR3	USD 280 - 535
GeForce 9800 GTX	675 MHz	1,688 MHz	128	1,100 MHz	256-bit	70.4 GB/s	512 MB GDDR3	USD 187 - 315
Palit GeForce 9800 GT 1 GB	600 MHz	1.5 GHz	112	900 MHz	256-bit	57.6 GB/s	1 GB GDDR3	N/A
GeForce 8800 GT	600 MHz	1.5 GHz	112	900 MHz	256-bit	57.6 GB/s	512 MB GDDR3	USD 120 - 190
GeForce 8800 GTS	500 MHz	1.2 GHz	96	800 MHz	320-bit	64 GB/s	320 MB GDDR3	–
Radeon HD 4870	750 MHz	750 MHz	800	900 MHz	256-bit	115.2 GB/s	512 MB GDDR5	USD 285 - 300
Radeon HD 4850	625 MHz	625 MHz	800	993 MHz	256-bit	63.5 GB/s	512 MB GDDR3	USD 170 - 195
Sapphire Atomic HD 3870 X2	857 MHz	857 MHz	320	927 MHz	256-bit	59.3 GB/s	1 GB GDDR3	–
Radeon HD 3870	776 MHz	776 MHz	320	1,125 MHz	256-bit	72 GB/s	512 MB GDDR4	USD 125 - 165

It is important to note that this table reflects the current prices for the listed video cards, which are lower than the prices we published in other reviews, since prices tend to drop every day. We couldn’t find the reviewed card being sold yet and it should come costing more than the regular GeForce 9800 GT (which costs around USD 170), since it has 1 GB instead of 512 MB. This would put the reviewed card on the same price range of Radeon HD 4850.

The only high-end video card not included in our comparison is GeForce 9800 GTX+, which is basically an overclocked GeForce 9800 GTX. Click here to read the full story.

Some important observations regarding this table:

• All NVIDIA chips are DirectX 10 (Shader 4.0), while all AMD/ATI chips are DirectX 10.1 (Shader 4.1).
• The memory clocks listed are the real memory clock. Memory clocks are often advertised as double the figures presented, numbers known as “DDR clock.” Radeon HD 4870 uses GDDR5 chips, which transfer four data per clock cycle and thus the “DDR clock” for this video card is four times the value presented on this table (i.e., 3.6 GHz).
• GeForce 9800 GX2 and Radeon HD 3870 X2 have two GPU’s. The numbers on the table represent only one of the chips.
• All video cards included on our review were running at the chip manufacturer default clock configuration (i.e., no overclocking), except Sapphire Atomic HD 3870 X2. The official core clock for Radeon HD 3870 X2 is 825 MHz, while the official memory clock is 900 MHz. So this card was a little bit overclocked. We couldn’t reduce these clocks to their reference values and since we hadn’t any other Radeon HD 3870 X2 available we included this video card anyway.
• Prices were researched at Newegg.com on the day we published this review.
• We couldn’t find Sapphire Atomic HD 3870 X2 for sale. This model will be more expensive than cards from other vendors based on the same GPU because it features water cooling. Just for you to have an idea, prices on the regular Radeon 3870 X2 are quoted between USD 270 and USD 370.

Before going to our tests let’s recap the main features from Palit GeForce 9800 GT Super+1GB.

Main Specifications

Palit GeForce 9800 GT Super+1GB main features are:

• Graphics chip: GeForce 9800 GT (codename G92), running at 600 MHz.
• Memory: 1 GB GDDR3 memory (256-bit interface) from Qimonda (HYB18H512321BF-10), running at 900  MHz (“1.8 GHz”).
• Bus type: PCI Express x16 2.0.
• Connectors: Two DVI (with HDMI support) and one S-Video output (with component video support).
• Video Capture (VIVO): No.
• Cables and adapters that come with this board: DVI-to-VGA adapter, DVI-to-HDMI adapter, SPDIF In cable and one standard 4-pin peripheral power plug to 6-pin PCI Express auxiliary power plug (PEG) adapter.
• Number of CDs/DVDs that come with this board: Two.
• Games that come with this board: Tomb Raider Anniversary (full version).
• Programs that come with this board: None.
• Minimum Required Power Supply: 450 W with 26 A on +12 V rail.
• More information: http://www.palit.biz
• Average price in the US:  We received this product for reviewing before it was available on the market.

How We Tested

During our benchmarking sessions, we used the configuration listed below. Between our benchmarking sessions the only variable was the video card being tested.

Hardware Configuration

• CPU: Core 2 Extreme QX9770 (3.2 GHz, 1,600 MHz FSB, 12 MB L2 memory cache).
• Motherboard: EVGA nForce 790i Ultra SLI (P05 BIOS)
• Memories: Crucial Ballistix PC3-16000 2 GB kit (BL2KIT12864BE2009), running at 2,000 MHz with 9-9-9-28 timings.
• Hard disk drive: Western Digital VelociRaptor WD3000GLFS (300 GB, SATA-300, 10,000 rpm, 16 MB cache).
• Video monitor: Samsung SyncMaster 305T (30” LCD, 2560x1600).
• Power supply required: OCZ EliteXStream 1,000 W.
• CPU Cooler: Thermaltake TMG i1
• Optical Drive: LG GSA-H54N
• Desktop video resolution: 2560x1600 @ 60 Hz

Software Configuration

• Windows Vista Ultimate 32-bit
• Service Pack 1

Driver Versions

• nForce driver version: 15.17
• AMD/ATI video driver version: Catalyst 8.5
• AMD/ATI video driver version: Catalyst 8.6 + hotfix (8.501.1.0, 6/21/2008) (Radeon HD 4850, HD 4870)
• NVIDIA video driver version: 175.16
• NVIDIA video driver version: 177.34 (GeForce GTX 260, GTX 280)
• NVIDIA video driver version: 177.79 (GeForce 9800 GT, 8800 GT, 8800 GTS)

Software Used

• 3DMark06 Professional 1.1.0 + October 2007 Hotfix
• 3DMark Vantage Professional 1.0.1
• Call of Duty 4 – Patch 1.6
• Crysis – Patch 1.2.1 + HardwareOC Crysis Benchmark Tool 1.3.0.0
• Half-Life 2: Episode Two – Patch June 9^th 2008 + HardwareOC Half-Life 2 Episode Two Benchmark Tool 1.2.0.0
• Quake 4 – Patch 1.4.2 
• Unreal Tournament 3 – Patch 1.2 + HardwareOC UT3 Benchmark Tool 1.2.0.0

Resolutions and Image Quality Settings

Since we were comparing very high-end video cards, we ran all our tests under three 16:10 widescreen high resolutions: 1680x1050, 1920x1200, and 2560x1600. We always tried to run the programs and games in two scenarios for each resolution, one with low image quality settings and then maxing out the image quality settings. The exact configuration we used will be described together with the results of each individual test.

Error Margin

We adopted a 3% error margin; thus, differences below 3% cannot be considered relevant. In other words, products with a performance difference below 3% should be considered as having similar performance.

3DMark06 Professional

3DMark06 measures Shader 3.0 (i.e., DirectX 9.0c) performance. We run this software under three 16:10 widescreen resolutions, 1680x1050, 1920x1200, and 2560x1600, first with no image quality enhancements enabled – results we call “low” on the charts and tables below –, then setting 4x anti-aliasing and 16x anisotropic filtering. See the results below.

3DMark06 Professional 1.1.0 - 1680x1050 - Low	Score	Difference
Sapphire Atomic Radeon HD 3870 X2	16260	41.75%
GeForce 9800 GX2	15623	36.20%
GeForce GTX 280	14904	29.93%
Sapphire Radeon HD 4870	14215	23.92%
GeForce GTX 260	13701	19.44%
GeForce 9800 GTX	12759	11.23%
Sapphire Radeon HD 4850	11842	3.23%
GeForce 8800 GT	11515	0.38%
GeForce 9800 GT	11471
Radeon HD 3870	10694	7.27%
GeForce 8800 GTS	8982	27.71%

3DMark06 Professional 1.1.0 - 1920x1200 - Low	Score	Difference
GeForce 9800 GX2	15547	51.63%
Sapphire Atomic Radeon HD 3870 X2	15489	51.07%
GeForce GTX 280	14215	38.64%
Sapphire Radeon HD 4870	13017	26.96%
GeForce GTX 260	12668	23.55%
GeForce 9800 GTX	11631	13.44%
Sapphire Radeon HD 4850	10691	4.27%
GeForce 8800 GT	10352	0.97%
GeForce 9800 GT	10253
Radeon HD 3870	9454	8.45%
GeForce 8800 GTS	7942	29.10%

3DMark06 Professional 1.1.0 - 2560x1600 - Low	Score	Difference
GeForce 9800 GX2	13015	69.49%
Sapphire Atomic Radeon HD 3870 X2	12315	60.37%
GeForce GTX 280	11766	53.22%
Sapphire Radeon HD 4870	10159	32.30%
GeForce GTX 260	9894	28.84%
GeForce 9800 GTX	8743	13.86%
Sapphire Radeon HD 4850	8077	5.18%
GeForce 8800 GT	7721	0.55%
GeForce 9800 GT	7679
Radeon HD 3870	6823	12.55%
GeForce 8800 GTS	5784	32.76%

3DMark06 Professional 1.1.0 - 1680x1050 - High	Score	Difference
Sapphire Atomic Radeon HD 3870 X2	16260	105.85%
GeForce 9800 GX2	13900	75.97%
GeForce GTX 280	12157	53.91%
Sapphire Radeon HD 4870	11063	40.06%
GeForce GTX 260	10617	34.41%
GeForce 9800 GTX	8981	13.70%
Sapphire Radeon HD 4850	8881	12.43%
GeForce 8800 GT	7987	1.11%
GeForce 9800 GT	7899
Radeon HD 3870	6915	14.23%
GeForce 8800 GTS	6371	23.98%

3DMark06 Professional 1.1.0 - 1920x1200 - High	Score	Difference
Sapphire Atomic Radeon HD 3870 X2	15489	126.91%
GeForce 9800 GX2	12213	78.92%
GeForce GTX 280	10991	61.02%
Sapphire Radeon HD 4870	10014	46.70%
GeForce GTX 260	9450	38.44%
Sapphire Radeon HD 4850	7972	16.79%
GeForce 9800 GTX	7811	14.43%
GeForce 8800 GT	6957	1.92%
GeForce 9800 GT	6826
Radeon HD 3870	6114	11.65%
GeForce 8800 GTS	5323	28.24%

3DMark06 Professional 1.1.0 - 2560x1600 - High	Score	Difference
Sapphire Atomic Radeon HD 3870 X2	12315	144.10%
GeForce 9800 GX2	9829	94.83%
GeForce GTX 280	8704	72.53%
Sapphire Radeon HD 4870	7550	49.65%
GeForce GTX 260	7285	44.40%
Sapphire Radeon HD 4850	5896	16.87%
GeForce 9800 GTX	5774	14.45%
GeForce 8800 GT	5129	1.67%
GeForce 9800 GT	5045
Radeon HD 3870	4319	16.81%

3DMark Vantage Professional

3DMark Vantage is the latest addition to the 3DMark series, measuring Shader 4.0 (i.e., DirectX 10) performance and supporting PhysX, a programming interface developed by Ageia (now part of NVIDIA) to transfer physics calculations from the system CPU to the video card GPU in order to increase performance. Mechanical physics is the basis for calculations about the interaction of objects. For example, if you shoot, what exactly will happen to the object when the bullet hits it? Will it break? Will it move? Will the bullet bounce back? Notice that we didn’t upgrade the PhysX to the latest version, which would make the physics calculations for CPU Test 2 to be made by the GPU instead of the CPU on NVIDIA video cards (since we aren't considering CPU or 3DMark scores this change wouldn't produce any increase in our results anyway).

We ran this program at three 16:10 widescreen resolutions, 1680x1050, 1920x1200, and 2560x1600. First we used the “Performance” profile, and then we used the “Extreme” profile (basically enabling anti-aliasing at 4x, anisotropic filtering at 16x, and putting all detail settings at their maximum or “extreme” value. The combination of 2560x1600 resolution with extreme settings didn’t produce reliable results according to the program, so we aren’t going to add them here. The results being compared are the “GPU Scores” achieved by each video card.

3DMark Vantage Professional 1.0.1 - 1680x1050 - Performance	Score	Difference
GeForce GTX 280	7695	108.48%
GeForce 9800 GX2	6990	89.38%
Sapphire Radeon HD 4870	6193	67.79%
GeForce GTX 260	5898	59.79%
Sapphire Atomic Radeon HD 3870 X2	5651	53.10%
Sapphire Radeon HD 4850	4797	29.96%
GeForce 8800 GT	3831	3.79%
GeForce 9800 GTX	3805	3.09%
GeForce 9800 GT	3691
Radeon HD 3870	2977	23.98%
GeForce 8800 GTS	2950	25.12%

3DMark Vantage Professional 1.0.1 - 1920x1200 - Performance	Score	Difference
GeForce GTX 280	6106	106.91%
GeForce 9800 GX2	5379	82.28%
Sapphire Radeon HD 4870	4880	65.37%
GeForce GTX 260	4582	55.27%
Sapphire Atomic Radeon HD 3870 X2	4336	46.93%
Sapphire Radeon HD 4850	3725	26.23%
GeForce 8800 GT	2978	0.91%
GeForce 9800 GT	2951
GeForce 9800 GTX	2891	2.08%
GeForce 8800 GTS	2280	29.43%
Radeon HD 3870	2269	30.06%

3DMark Vantage Professional 1.0.1 - 2560x1600 - Performance	Score	Difference
GeForce GTX 280	3549	116.67%
GeForce 9800 GX2	2910	77.66%
Sapphire Radeon HD 4870	2728	66.54%
GeForce GTX 260	2640	61.17%
Sapphire Atomic Radeon HD 3870 X2	2382	45.42%
Sapphire Radeon HD 4850	2050	25.15%
GeForce 9800 GT	1638
GeForce 8800 GT	1634	0.24%
GeForce 9800 GTX	1557	5.20%
Radeon HD 3870	1244	31.67%

3DMark Vantage Professional 1.0.1 - 1680x1050 - Extreme	Score	Difference
GeForce GTX 280	6005	119.08%
GeForce 9800 GX2	4858	77.23%
GeForce GTX 260	4531	65.30%
Sapphire Radeon HD 4870	4360	59.07%
Sapphire Atomic Radeon HD 3870 X2	3567	30.13%
Sapphire Radeon HD 4850	3445	25.68%
GeForce 9800 GT	2741
GeForce 8800 GT	2733	0.29%
GeForce 9800 GTX	2703	1.41%
Radeon HD 3870	1855	47.76%
GeForce 8800 GTS	997	174.92%

3DMark Vantage Professional 1.0.1 - 1920x1200 - Extreme	Score	Difference
GeForce GTX 280	4732	121.54%
GeForce GTX 260	3576	67.42%
GeForce 9800 GX2	3508	64.23%
Sapphire Radeon HD 4870	3490	63.39%
Sapphire Radeon HD 4850	2753	28.89%
Sapphire Atomic Radeon HD 3870 X2	2669	24.95%
GeForce 9800 GT	2136
GeForce 8800 GT	2094	2.01%
GeForce 9800 GTX	2038	4.81%
Radeon HD 3870	1439	48.44%

Call of Duty 4

Call of Duty 4 is a DirectX 9 game implementing high-dynamic range (HDR) and its own physics engine, which is used to calculate how objects interact. For example, if you shoot, what exactly will happen to the object when the bullet hits it? Will it break? Will it move? Will the bullet bounce back? It gives a more realistic experience to the user.

We ran this program at three 16:10 widescreen resolutions, 1680x1050, 1920x1200, and 2560x1600, maxing out all image quality controls (i.e., everything was put on the maximum values on the Graphics and Texture menus). We used the game internal benchmarking feature, running a demo provided by NVIDIA called “wetwork.” We are putting this demo for downloading here if you want to run your own benchmarks. The game was updated to version 1.6. The results below are the average number of frames per second (FPS) achieved by each card.

Call of Duty 4 - 1680x1050 - Maximum	Score	Difference
GeForce 9800 GX2	106.2	73.25%
GeForce GTX 280	105.3	71.78%
Sapphire Radeon HD 4870	93.4	52.37%
GeForce GTX 260	91.0	48.45%
Sapphire Atomic Radeon HD 3870 X2	75.7	23.49%
Sapphire Radeon HD 4850	72.4	18.11%
GeForce 9800 GTX	69.1	12.72%
GeForce 9800 GT	61.3
GeForce 8800 GT	61.1	0.33%
GeForce 8800 GTS	51.1	19.96%
Radeon HD 3870	43.0	42.56%

Call of Duty 4 - 1920x1200 - Maximum	Score	Difference
GeForce 9800 GX2	94.5	86.02%
GeForce GTX 280	91.7	80.51%
GeForce GTX 260	77.1	51.77%
Sapphire Radeon HD 4870	76.4	50.39%
Sapphire Atomic Radeon HD 3870 X2	61.3	20.67%
Sapphire Radeon HD 4850	59.1	16.34%
GeForce 9800 GTX	57.7	13.58%
GeForce 8800 GT	51.7	1.77%
GeForce 9800 GT	50.8
GeForce 8800 GTS	40.4	25.74%
Radeon HD 3870	35.4	43.50%

Call of Duty 4 - 2560x1600 - Maximum	Score	Difference
GeForce 9800 GX2	64.8	94.59%
GeForce GTX 280	64.8	94.59%
GeForce GTX 260	53.5	60.66%
Sapphire Radeon HD 4870	48.1	44.44%
Sapphire Atomic Radeon HD 3870 X2	40.6	21.92%
GeForce 9800 GTX	38.3	15.02%
Sapphire Radeon HD 4850	36.7	10.21%
GeForce 8800 GT	33.9	1.80%
GeForce 9800 GT	33.3
Radeon HD 3870	22.4	48.66%

Crysis

Crysis is a very heavy DirectX 10 game. We updated this game to version 1.2.1 and used the HOC Crysis Benchmarking Utility to help us collecting data. Since we don’t think the default demo based on the island map stresses the video card the way we want, we used the HOC core demo available with the abovementioned utility. We ran this demo under three 16:10 widescreen resolutions, 1680x1050, 1920x1200, and 2560x1600, first with image quality set to “low” and then with image quality set to “high.” Since all video cards achieved a number of frames per second below 10 at 2560x1600 with image details set to “high,” we are not including this test as the results aren’t reliable. We ran each test twice and discarded the first result, as usually the first run achieves a lower score compared to the subsequent runs since the game loses time loading files. The results below are the average number of frames per second (FPS) achieved by each card.

Crysis 1.2.1 - 1680x1050 - Low	Score	Difference
Sapphire Atomic Radeon HD 3870 X2	125	66.67%
GeForce GTX 280	125	66.67%
Sapphire Radeon HD 4870	101	34.67%
GeForce GTX 260	99	32.00%
GeForce 9800 GTX	84	12.00%
Sapphire Radeon HD 4850	84	12.00%
GeForce 9800 GX2	75	0.00%
GeForce 9800 GT	75
GeForce 8800 GT	73	2.74%
Radeon HD 3870	71	5.63%
GeForce 8800 GTS	51	47.06%

Crysis 1.2.1 - 1920x1200 - Low	Score	Difference
GeForce GTX 280	115	88.52%
Sapphire Atomic Radeon HD 3870 X2	108	77.05%
Sapphire Radeon HD 4870	84	37.70%
GeForce GTX 260	83	36.07%
GeForce 9800 GTX	69	13.11%
Sapphire Radeon HD 4850	67	9.84%
GeForce 9800 GX2	63	3.28%
GeForce 9800 GT	61
GeForce 8800 GT	61	0.00%
Radeon HD 3870	58	5.17%
GeForce 8800 GTS	43	41.86%

Crysis 1.2.1 - 2560x1600 - Low	Score	Difference
GeForce GTX 280	95	143.59%
Sapphire Atomic Radeon HD 3870 X2	71	82.05%
Sapphire Radeon HD 4870	53	35.90%
GeForce GTX 260	52	33.33%
GeForce 9800 GTX	44	12.82%
Sapphire Radeon HD 4850	43	10.26%
GeForce 9800 GX2	42	7.69%
GeForce 9800 GT	39
GeForce 8800 GT	39	0.00%
Radeon HD 3870	35	11.43%
GeForce 8800 GTS	27	44.44%

Crysis 1.2.1 - 1680x1050 - High	Score	Difference
GeForce GTX 280	42	68.00%
Sapphire Radeon HD 4870	37	48.00%
GeForce GTX 260	32	28.00%
GeForce 9800 GTX	29	16.00%
Sapphire Radeon HD 4850	29	16.00%
Sapphire Atomic Radeon HD 3870 X2	26	4.00%
GeForce 9800 GX2	25	0.00%
GeForce 9800 GT	25
GeForce 8800 GT	24	4.17%
Radeon HD 3870	19	31.58%
GeForce 8800 GTS	16	56.25%

Crysis 1.2.1 - 1920x1200 - High	Score	Difference
GeForce GTX 280	34	70.00%
Sapphire Radeon HD 4870	30	50.00%
GeForce GTX 260	26	30.00%
Sapphire Radeon HD 4850	23	15.00%
GeForce 9800 GTX	22	10.00%
GeForce 9800 GX2	21	5.00%
Sapphire Atomic Radeon HD 3870 X2	20	0.00%
GeForce 9800 GT	20
GeForce 8800 GT	19	5.26%
Radeon HD 3870	16	25.00%
GeForce 8800 GTS	12	66.67%

Unreal Tournament 3

Unreal Tournament 3 is the latest installment from this famous first person shooter franchise, supporting DirectX 10 graphics when installed on Windows Vista with a DX10 compatible card. We upgraded Unreal Tournament 3 to version 1.2 and benchmarked it with the help of HOC UT3 benchmarking utility using the “Containment” demo, maxing out image quality settings (image quality at “high” and anisotropic filtering at x16). It is important to note that we haven’t applied the PhysX mod to this game, which would transfer PhysX processing from the CPU to the GPU on NVIDIA cards. The results below are the average number of frames per second (FPS) achieved by each card.

Unreal Tournament 3 - 1680x1050 - Maximum	Score	Difference
GeForce 9800 GTX	112	17.89%
GeForce 9800 GX2	108	13.68%
GeForce GTX 260	106	11.58%
GeForce GTX 280	104	9.47%
Sapphire Radeon HD 4870	104	9.47%
GeForce 8800 GT	97	2.11%
Sapphire Radeon HD 4850	96	1.05%
GeForce 9800 GT	95
Sapphire Atomic Radeon HD 3870 X2	84	13.10%
Radeon HD 3870	83	14.46%
GeForce 8800 GTS	80	18.75%

Unreal Tournament 3 - 1920x1200 - Maximum	Score	Difference
GeForce 9800 GTX	108	35.00%
GeForce 9800 GX2	106	32.50%
GeForce GTX 260	103	28.75%
Sapphire Radeon HD 4870	98	22.50%
GeForce GTX 280	91	13.75%
Sapphire Radeon HD 4850	89	11.25%
GeForce 8800 GT	81	1.25%
GeForce 9800 GT	80
Sapphire Atomic Radeon HD 3870 X2	78	2.56%
Radeon HD 3870	75	6.67%
GeForce 8800 GTS	66	21.21%

 

Unreal Tournament 3 - 2560x1600 - Maximum	Score	Difference
GeForce 9800 GTX	92	76.92%
GeForce 9800 GX2	92	76.92%
Sapphire Radeon HD 4870	78	50.00%
GeForce GTX 260	76	46.15%
GeForce GTX 280	62	19.23%
Sapphire Radeon HD 4850	60	15.38%
GeForce 8800 GT	53	1.92%
GeForce 9800 GT	52
Sapphire Atomic Radeon HD 3870 X2	51	1.96%
Radeon HD 3870	47	10.64%
GeForce 8800 GTS	41	26.83%

Half-Life 2: Episode Two

Half-Life 2 is a popular franchise and we benchmark the video cards using Episode Two with the aid of HOC Half-Life 2 Episode Two benchmarking utility using the “HOC Demo 1” provided by this program. We ran the game in three 16:10 widescreen resolutions, 1680x1050, 1920x1200, and 2560x1600, under two scenarios. First with quality set to maximum, bilinear filtering and anti-aliasing set to x0. This configuration we are calling “low” on the charts and tables below. Then we maxed out image quality settings, enabling x16 anisotropic filtering and 16xQCS anti-aliasing. This configuration we are calling “high” on our charts and tables. We updated the game up to the June 9^th 2008 patch. The results below are the average number of frames per second (FPS) achieved by each card.

Half-Life 2: Episode Two - 1680x1050 - Low	Score	Difference
Sapphire Radeon HD 4870	170.0	8.97%
Sapphire Radeon HD 4850	164.9	5.71%
Sapphire Atomic Radeon HD 3870 X2	160.4	2.82%
GeForce GTX 260	157.0	0.64%
GeForce GTX 280	156.3	0.19%
GeForce 9800 GT	156.0
GeForce 8800 GT	156.0	0.00%
GeForce 9800 GTX	153.8	1.43%
Radeon HD 3870	145.7	7.07%
GeForce 9800 GX2	136.8	14.04%
GeForce 8800 GTS	132.0	18.18%

Half-Life 2: Episode Two - 1920x1200 - Low	Score	Difference
Sapphire Radeon HD 4870	165.0	15.38%
Sapphire Atomic Radeon HD 3870 X2	156.7	9.58%
GeForce GTX 280	156.3	9.30%
GeForce GTX 260	153.0	6.99%
Sapphire Radeon HD 4850	149.8	4.76%
GeForce 9800 GTX	146.9	2.73%
GeForce 8800 GT	144.0	0.70%
GeForce 9800 GT	143.0
GeForce 9800 GX2	135.2	5.77%
Radeon HD 3870	120.1	19.07%
GeForce 8800 GTS	108.0	32.41%

Half-Life 2: Episode Two - 2560x1600 - Low	Score	Difference
GeForce GTX 280	145.1	51.15%
GeForce 9800 GX2	130.6	36.04%
Sapphire Atomic Radeon HD 3870 X2	129.7	35.10%
GeForce GTX 260	124.0	29.17%
Sapphire Radeon HD 4870	117.0	21.88%
GeForce 9800 GTX	107.9	12.40%
GeForce 8800 GT	96.0	0.00%
GeForce 9800 GT	96.0
Sapphire Radeon HD 4850	93.9	2.24%
Radeon HD 3870	72.8	31.87%
GeForce 8800 GTS	67.0	43.28%

Half-Life 2: Episode Two - 1680x1050 - High	Score	Difference
Sapphire Radeon HD 4870	144.0	80.00%
GeForce 9800 GTX	137.9	72.38%
Sapphire Atomic Radeon HD 3870 X2	126.1	57.63%
GeForce 9800 GX2	125.4	56.75%
GeForce GTX 260	121.0	51.25%
Sapphire Radeon HD 4850	116.2	45.25%
GeForce GTX 280	89.3	11.63%
GeForce 8800 GT	81.0	1.25%
GeForce 9800 GT	80.0
Radeon HD 3870	68.3	17.13%
GeForce 8800 GTS	68.0	17.65%

Half-Life 2: Episode Two - 1920x1200 - High	Score	Difference
Sapphire Radeon HD 4870	124.0	96.83%
GeForce 9800 GTX	116.3	84.60%
GeForce 9800 GX2	111.1	76.35%
Sapphire Atomic Radeon HD 3870 X2	106.5	69.05%
GeForce GTX 260	101.0	60.32%
Sapphire Radeon HD 4850	97.2	54.29%
GeForce GTX 280	70.3	11.59%
GeForce 8800 GT	64.0	1.59%
GeForce 9800 GT	63.0
Radeon HD 3870	56.8	10.92%
GeForce 8800 GTS	54.0	16.67%

Half-Life 2: Episode Two - 2560x1600 - High	Score	Difference
Sapphire Radeon HD 4870	75.0	108.33%
GeForce 9800 GTX	71.3	98.06%
GeForce GTX 260	61.0	69.44%
Sapphire Radeon HD 4850	58.4	62.22%
Sapphire Atomic Radeon HD 3870 X2	50.6	40.56%
GeForce 9800 GX2	37.5	4.17%
GeForce 9800 GT	36.0
GeForce GTX 280	35.5	1.41%
Radeon HD 3870	34.9	3.15%
GeForce 8800 GT	34.0	5.88%

Conclusions

We came to several interesting conclusions about the new GeForce 9800 GT.

First, GeForce 9800 GT is literally identical to GeForce 8800 GT, achieving the exact same performance. Its price is the same as GeForce 8800 GT, around USD 170. If you won’t use the Hybrid Power feature (which allows the video card to be turned off when you are not playing games, thus saving you some money on your electricity bill; you need to have a compatible motherboard, though) you can simply buy a GeForce 8800 GT and save some bucks. Even though both cards have officially the same price tag, on NewEgg.com you can find GeForce 8800 GT models being sold as low as USD 120. Of course as soon as more companies offer GeForce 9800 GT cards the price should drop.

This model from Palit with 1 GB achieved the same performance level of the regular GeForce 8800 GT card on practically all tests. The only time we saw a difference was at 2560x1600 with image quality settings maxed out on Crysis and Half-Life 2: Episode Two, and even then the difference wasn’t so big (5-6%). Since this model with 1 GB will hit the market costing more than the regular GeForce 9800 GT, we recommend you buying the regular model instead to save some bucks. Of course we haven’t run all possible games on the market and you may see some difference on other games.

At the USD 170 price range, GeForce 9800 GT is positioned between Radeon HD 3870 and Radeon HD 4850. It was between 3% and 49% faster than HD 3870, depending on the program and video configuration used.

However, if you research carefully you can find Radeon HD 4850 models also being sold at USD 170, making them a no-brainer for someone willing to buy a good video card and has this amount to spend. In fact, even if you find Radeon HD 4850 being sold for a little more than that we highly suggest you to make the effort to buy it instead of GeForce 9800 GT, as it provides a performance up to 62% higher, depending on the game and configuration used. Of course 62% is an extreme case, but you will easily see around 20% performance gain over 9800 GT.

As we mentioned, the reviewed 1 GB model from Palit will reach the market costing a little bit more than the regular GeForce 9800 GT, putting it in the same price range as Radeon HD 4850. Between the two, we recommend Radeon HD 4850.

GeForce 9800 GT would be a good pick only if its price dropped to around USD 150 or even below that, in our opinion.