Testbed:

Motherboard:
EVGA 680i SLI (Supplied by EVGA)

Processor:
Intel Core 2 Duo 6800 Extreme edition (Supplied by Intel)

Memory:
OCZ FlexXLC PC2 9200 5-5-5-18  (Supplied by OCZ)
        during testing CL5-5-5-15-CR2T 1066MHz at 2.2V

PSU:
OCZ Silencer 750 Quad Black (Supplied by OCZ)

Hard disk:
Seagate Barracuda 7200.9 80GB SATA (Supplied by Seagate)

CPU-Cooler:
Freezer 7 Pro (Supplied by Artic Cooling)

Case Fans:
Artic Cooling - Artic Fan 12 PWM
Artic Cooling - Artic Fan 8 PWM


Futuremarks



Default 1280x1024 resolution in 3DMark06 didn't quite do 9800 GX2 SSC justice. The result is almost identical to the one on Gainward 9800 GX2 card at reference speeds. Radeon HD 3870 X2 is close, but only in synthetic testing, whereas the gaming was a different story altogether.

If you have two 8800 GTS cards in SLI mode, you’ll get results similar to those scored by a single 9800 GX2 card. You already know that GX2 is based on two G92 chips, the same chips found on 8800 GTS cards.


(updated : new GPU-Z 0.1.9 screenshot)

EVGA 9800 GX2 core runs at 675MHz, but we managed to hit 740MHz. The card ran at 750MHz also, but certain games and resolutions made it unstable, so we didn’t include the 750MHz results in our tables. Overclocked 9800 GX2 SSC at 740MHz scored 14002 marks in 3DMark06.



Gaming



EVGA 9800 GX2 SSC at 675MHz beats Gainwards 9800 GX2 card by 2-4%, whereas at higher resolutions it outperforms 9800 GTX by about 50%.




In Crysis, EVGA 9800 GX2 outperforms the reference card by up to 12%. However, it shows its true face at higher resolutions and we see that it beats 9800 GTX card by about 40%, whereas 1600x1200 and AA results in almost 62% advantage.



In F.E.A.R., EVGA 9800 GX2 SSC outperforms 9800 GTX by up to 83% and beats Gainward 9800 GX2 (at reference speeds) by up to 7%.





In the last two games, overclocked 9800 GX2 SSC card beats the reference 9800GX2 by up to 5%.

Conclusion

We’ve already grown impatient waiting for overclocked 9800 GX2 cards, and EVGA made our day. They offer four cards running at higher than reference 600MHz speeds. We showed you the fastest one running at 675MHz. The SSC card uses reference cooling, but if that doesn’t strike your chord – EVGA also offers Black Pearl, a water-cooled version of 9800 GX2.

The card is the fastest one around and you can also use it in Quad-SLI. HybridPower is also there to power down your card when not used, and let integrated graphics (or as Nvidia likes to call it mGPU) do the job. PCIe 2.0, HDMI with HDCP, DirectX 10 and 1024MB (2x512MB) are the features that this card brings.

EVGA 9800 GX2 SSC is something you don’t see every day, and the results speak for themselves. As long as you can afford it, we sincerely recommend this card because it’s the best pick on the market.

Due to high overclockability and 740MHz stable clock we can highly recommend it to any overclocker.