Testbed:

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

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



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



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







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.



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.