GeForce 9800 X2 pics!

[Babrbarossa]

Perhaps this should be in the rumors section...oh well- this is from HOCP





The best way to think of the GeForce 9800 GX2 card is as an 8800 GPU that has been die shrunk to 65nm and placed in an SLI configuration in a "single" card. The 9800 GX2 is very reminiscent of 7950 GX2 of days past. (And we loved the 7950 GX2 at launch, but terrible support and diminishing returns soon painted it as one of NVIDIA’s biggest failures since the 5800 series.)

The GeForce 9800 GX2 will launch in late February or early March as it now stands and will replace the 8800 Ultra (single GPU) card in NVIDIA's high-end product line up. The 9800 GX2 is said to be 30% faster than a 8800 Ultra. While it is not clear from the pictures below, we are told it will support "Quad SLI."

GeForce 9800 GX2

1. 1GB Frame Buffer
2. Two PCBs
3. Two 65nm GPUs Total
4. 256 Stream Processors Total

[BALISTX]

Very Intersting, but it will be too rich for my blood. It will be nice to see what the rest of the 9 series will be like.

[Empty_Quarter]

Is it me ... or did they just forget to put a fan?

Maybe the fan is behind those grills? I wonder why they did that.

Looking good!

[MpG]

Reasonable enough, I suppose. At least it's not some glorified wish list like so much other speculation.

The specs suggest a pair of 8800 GTS 512's stuck together, and the 30% faster than an Ultra suggests that either Nvidia's being conservative with the scaling, or the cards have been downclocked for thermal reasons, just like the 7950GX2 was. Not sure why they'd consider this card a 9-series, though.

I'm not sure that I like it, though. In previous benches with the old G80 cores against the newer G92, the GTX and Ultra's generally pulled ahead in the higher settings, where their memory size and bandwidth gave them the edge. Considering that this card's got twice the horsepower (by the numbers), I wonder if the (effective) 512 MB of memory and the 256-bit memory bus will become a problem?

[-n7-]

SLI sandwiches ftl, sorry.

nV has been milking things for too long...starting to get really annoying.

The real next gen part is due 1.5 months later according to nordichardware IIRC.

[omgwtf]

This will be around 900 bucks :)

[Mysteryous]

Man that thing looks to be so long, it could actually be used as a separator/support thingie inside a case. Say goodbye to sub 20" long cases with that thing. High end videocards these days are getting to be ridiculously long these days.
<insert ridiculously long word or phrase to graphically illustrate and dramatize how ridiculously long video cards are getting these days here>

[belgolas]

more pics at toms.Exclusive: Nvidia GeForce 9800GX2 | Tom's Hardware

[magictorch]

About 450USD? Thats a great price for all that horsepower. I wonder if it will OC much though due to heat issues. Still Im bit more enthusiastic about it than I was.

If AMD doesn't release a very high end card soon to compete I guess the other high end cards wont be on the shelves anytime soon.

[999Virus999]

Originally Posted by omgwtf

This will be around 900 bucks :)

Toms Hardware shows an estimated price of $449.00 US. Thats cheaper than the Ultra is selling for now? and I just bought an Ultra

9V9

[yycraven]

this is what I have read about the 9800GTX and GX 2
[H] Enthusiast - NVIDIA GPU Roadmap Outline for 1H08
specs
Source: X-bit labs - Discussion on article Nvidia Plans to Start Transition to PCI Express 2.0 This Fall.

the list of the new specifications of the 9800GTX

The card will cost:
-The 9800GTX for 549$>649$
-The 9800GTS for 399$>449$

- 65nm process technology at TSMC.
- Over one billion transistors.
- Second Generation Unified Shader Architecture.
- Double precsion support (FP64).
- GPGPU native.
- Over one TeraFLOPS of shader processing power.
- MADD+ADD configuration for the shader untis (2+1 FLOPS=3 FLOPS per ALU)
- Fully Scalar design.
- 512-bit memory interface.
- 1024MB GDDR4 graphics memory.
- DirectX 10.1 support.
- OpenGL 3.0 Support.
- eDRAM die for "FREE 4xAA".
- built in Audio Chip.
- built in tesselation unit (in the graphics core"
- Improved AA and AF quality levels

[belgolas]

those are old and outdated the 9800 GTX and other 9800 cards are only suppose to be a die shrink with probably only a few new things like the G92 cards,

[DaleF]

Ooh, I like that eDRAM. And the matrix math stuff looks interesting as well.

But is it just me, or does Nvidia's numbering scheme sort of suck? 9800X2 based on 8000 series cores, shouldn't that be the 8850 or something?

[Hillsdale]

its ugly. it looks like a big black brick. They need to make it look better, imo.

[MacJunky]

I think it looks great. I am one of those people who get pissed off about the design of things nowadays being bulky, bubbly, wasteful, and all around ugly.
I will be disappointed if they slap a huge sticker on that thing like they and their competitors do so often.