Published in Reviews

MSI 9800 GTX+ Gaming Series tested

by on17 October 2008

Index


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Review: Better than the overclocked 9800 GTX

 

A few months ago, somewhat unexpectedly, AMD recaptured the graphics crown. Nvidia had to find an answer to Radeon HD 4850 fast, because the card surprised everyone with great performance at an affordable price. Geforce 9800 GTX couldn’t handle ATI’s new ace and that’s where Geforce 9800 GTX+ comes in.

As the name suggests, this is an improved version of 9800 GTX, where the only difference is the new G92b core. A more advanced 55nm production process enabled higher speeds than those on 65nm 9800 GTX. Smaller surface also means lower voltage and temperatures, but there was also some optimization in play. After this chip was locked and loaded, Nvidia decided to slash 9800 GTX pricing and position 9800 GTX+ on GTX’s previous price point.

9800 GTX’s G92 core runs at 675MHz, shaders at 1688MHz and the memory at effective 2200MHz. As we’ve mentioned before, GTX+ runs at higher clocks – 738MHz core, 1836MHz shader whereas the memory was left unchanged and runs at 2200MHz.

Now we know how this card came about, but it was long speculated that launching this card is a fool’s errand, as an overclocked 9800 GTX will perform better in gaming. This is indeed the case, and you’ll see it for yourself today, as we used an overclocked 9800 GTX card running at 760MHz for comparison. However, the good thing about the new G92b core is that, apart from the higher reference clocks, it’s much more overclocking friendly.


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MSI Gaming Series is not significantly overclocked from reference speeds, but you’ll receive RainbowSix Vegas2 gift game in the box.

Looks-wise, the new 9800 GTX+ card is no different from 9800 GTX. It still features a dual slot cooler – the same one found on 9800 GTX cards.

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The cooler is dual-slot and efficient, so we had a hard time figuring out why it still runs at fixed speeds, rather than auto control. It’s inaudible, but temperatures occasionally hit up to 90°C. If we set it to auto control mode, you’ll still have a pretty quiet card running at 65°C. This is a turbine cooler that blows the heat out of the case.

Temperatures show the advantage of the 55nm core. The 65nm 9800 GTX runs 5°C hotter in the same case scenario.

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The cooler covers the entire card and it features a picture of MSI’s monsters and the name of the card. I/O panel features a TV out and two DVIs, which are covered with blue protective caps. DVI outs have HDCP and are HDMI ready. Audio-in connector is located on the upper side, next to the MSI’s sticker. We’re no strangers to Nvidia’s so called “Audio Integration Solution” which basically means that you’ll have to route sound to the graphics card using a separate cable in order to have both audio and video streaming through the HDMI cable to your HDTV device. You’ll also have to use the DVI-to-HDMI dongle included in the box.

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Geforce 9800 features TriSLI and Hybrid Power support. Powering is, like with any other graphics card in this category, done trough two 6pin PCIe connectors.

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Consumption difference between the overclocked MSI 9800 GTX+ and reference Geforce 9800 GTX cards is negligible, but note that MSI GTX+ runs at much higher speeds. The difference is more evident when compared to the overclocked 9800 GTX card. While our system equipped with MSI’s card consumes around 280W, the old core at same speeds results in some 15W more.

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Apart from nice looks, this card provides the capabilities for playing all the current games. Additional capabilities provided by Nvidia’s GPU are executing apps directly on the graphics core by using CUDA, and PhysX support.

The card ships in MSI’a standard packaging, but this time in Rainbow Six Vegas2 theme.

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Testbed:

Motherboard:
EVGA 790i SLI FTW, (Provided by EVGA)

Processor:
Intel quad core QX9770 3.2GH, (Provided by Intel)

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We were trying to find out whether the new GPU is faster than the old one. We used one of the fastest 9800 GTX cards, XFX 9800 GTX Black Edition running at similar speeds as our tested MSI 9800 GTX+ OC card. Both cards still pack additional overclocking headroom, and we managed to push XFX to 805MHz whereas MSI handled speeds of up to 820MHz.
 

Futuremarks


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There’s no difference between overclocked 9800 GTX (G92 and G92b) cards as they both run at 760MHz and 1900MHz for the shaders. MSI card’s memory is faster but only by 10MHz. Gainward’s 4850 Golden Sample, running at 700MHz, still came out on top.


Gaming

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Reference 9800 GTX is about 10% slower than the two 9800 cards at 760MHz. In the overclocked card scenario the margin is greater if you play with filters off, but we turned them on for the sake of the test. We didn’t show that but we did play without antialiasing at 1600x1200 and scored a frame rate of over 26fps.

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Crysis is a graphics card’s nightmare, and we see at the highest resolutions that if you don’t have 1GB of memory, you’ll hardly walk more than a couple of in-game feet. GTX 280 and Gainward cards, which were the only ones that allowed for any movement, were so slow that you can simply forget about these resolutions.



Conclusion

MSI 9800 GTX+ is priced at over €175, whereas reference GTX+ card can be found at €147. The €30 price premium for MSI’s card is a price you’ll pay for the gift-game and the higher clocks. The competition is fierce though as reference Radeon HD 4850 cards can be found at €125. XFX Geforce 9800 GTX Black Edition is replaced by a GTX+ version running at 785MHz (pricier than MSI’s card) so it’s quite hard to find the version we tested.

The results show that MSI 9800 GTX+ Gaming Series works well compared to 9800 GTX cards, but it has a hard time handling the overclocked HD 4850. Power consumption is lower than on 9800 GTX cards, which will pay off in the long run. Transition to 55nm process has enabled higher clocks with same or lower temperatures and the dual-slot cooler does its job flawlessly.

Apart from the overclocked core, MSI will include the game RainbowSix Vegas 2 as a gift, so it’s a nice advantage over the other 9800 GTX+ cards. Still, that won’t give you the upper hand in comparison with ATI’s competitive cards, but if you’re an Nvidia fan then there’s no reason not to go for it, as it enables playing all the current games and comes with CUDA and PhysX support.

Last modified on 18 October 2008
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