still nothing out there worth upgrading my 8800GTX over.

I've never had a card be so close to top of the line for so long!

Yikes. The noise this puts out is ridiculous.

Agreed. 35fps average on high is still too low.
Whoops. This was a reply to #53..

How does this card work on a non-nVidia based chipset like the P35? if it's just SLI on a single PCIe slot, it's still SLI right? I don't understand how this works and the article does not describe how you are able to use this on a non-nVidia chipset.

Sorry if that sounded redundant. I just came back from the doctors office and still a little spacey from the pain meds.

I would like to bring to everyone's attention the lack of comments about how this is not 'one' GPU to rule them all.

After all the bashing of the elegant single PCB 3870x2 I am at a loss as to the lack of comments by those who shall remain un-named, about how this, nVidia's latest offering, using 2 PCB's is a clumsy, ridiculously expensive and desperate way to claw back the fastest video card crown.

Now hopefully they can stop the silly bashing of the ATI design?

Anyone else disturbed that it's essentially 2 graphic cards sandwiched together? It's like taking 2 Corvettes and just glue them together.

Didn't Tim Sweeney just tell us that these type of overpriced graphic cards are actually hurting the PC gaming industry, rather then helping it?

I'd be more excited if Nvidia can bring affordable on board video that actually performs very well. Thus raising the standard for PC gaming.

To be honest, I'm a little un-impressed. I mean, this dual-PCB card tends to get beaten by the two, single-PCB 8800 Ultra's in SLI consistently. When the 8800 came out, it utterly thrashed the 7900, let alone the 7800.

I guess that's what I've come to expect, but... now, when the 9800 GX2 COMPLETELY failed to deliver that, I... I guess it gives me hope that AMD will be able to deliver a pretty strong competitor with the HD 4000-series, because it looks to me like they're just barely clinging to life on the desktop these days.

And damn, it'd be nice to get some nice, high-end gaming notebooks with some AMD graphics. AMD actually makes GOOD Vista drivers, so... yeah...

We have a single card champ, with a card that uses two slot spaces. What card is the single slot space champ?

$600 for a video card, FOR WHAT?! To play crysis?

Only 52962 on 3d Mark? I was expecting a score of atleast infinity. I'm not paying 599.99 for a card unless it scores infinity on 3d Mark.

The most impressive part of this review imo, and sorry if this was already said I didn't read all the comments, has nothing to do with the featured card but rather it's the price:performance of 9600GT in SLI.

It looks like a PS2…

So everything old is new again.

7950GX2, meet G92.

It's too bad Nvidia stuck with tried-and-true again instead of doing more. I was hoping SLI+>1 display would finally happen. If you've got a non-SLI chipset, it's about as fast as a single PCIe slot can go. Otherwise, too expensive and too niche.

It's a shame; both Intel and Nvidia are lazy-ing up, I hope ATI/MD and AMD/TI can kick them a little just to get things moving again.

would it be even remotely possible to get rid of the fan and watercool it???? If I had $600 to spend on it Id also have watercooling....

anyways what comes after 9800??? 10600?? or is this the end of the geforce series

Excellent review Scott, thanks.
(Quite a week for cranking out reviews, even if they are Nvidia products)

I kid, I kid.

I am disappointed in the drivers / software.
I remember when everyone talked about how terrible ATI was with bad drivers and software, and infrequent updates.

My how the tables have turned. Even if I was someone who had the money to buy this card, I wouldn’t just because of having terrible software compared to the competition.

Having to turn multi-GPU on and off, and having output go to only one display in SLI is weak at this state of the game. Shame on Nvidia for treating people who drop half a grand on their hardware like this.

Stop reading when you said Cash beat Vader... No one beats Vader... Besides Luke... and Obi Wan... oh whatever then

I wish TR did some more benches with AA because I know that GX2 absolutely chokes with 8x AA or any kind of AA with high resolutions.

It is well worth pointing out how the 9600 GT SLI setup gets viciously close to the 9800 GX2 in certain games at many different resolutions, which is interesting and hilarious at the same time.

You can have that setup for half the price of this beast, and you're cheaper off even if you would need to invest in a brand new SLI board to make it work.

I'm not too surprised that a $600 video card is the fastest one out there right now, though I think a single PCB design would have been more interesting coming from nvidia. Maybe it wasn't possible for power/thermal reasons?

Also I agree with what Ashbringer posted, in that raising the bottom line would be more impressive than pushing the ceiling at this point. AMD really pushed that with the 780G, and I'm wondering if the GeForce 8200 chipset will have similar performance.

Of course, given Intel's marketshare in integrated graphics (and the sad fact that 780G will likely never be available for Intel), it won't help all that much if the G45 can't keep up with them.

Also, did I understand this part of the article correctly:

The second port will drive a display only once you have video drivers installed and are booted into a proper OS.

They have multiple displays working in SLI now? Or do the drivers disable SLI for this functionality?

Nothing on Displayport? (Were there any cards that have this instead of hdmi?) Can we get some tests (i.e. what is it like working with?

Awesome card, Awful price.

Yawn, this is Nvidia way of getting the crown back from 3870X2.

Otherwise, this card is fairly underwhelming for the cost. At least it defeats the pointless 3-way SLI while using only one 16x PCIe slot. It is sad that a overclocked 8800GTX (8800U) holds up so well.

I can understand why Nvidia are not making 1GiB version of 9800GX2. 8800GTS 1GB SLI benchmarks already proved how pointless it is to have 1GiB when the card isn't powerful enough to take advantage of the memory.

Gimme next-generation architects not rehashed, die-shrinks of the current generation.

hmm.. What is the delta between a GX2 on a nv chipset vs an Intel.

say the 790 vs 35.

That would be interesting. As stated in the review it allows SLI to be used with an Intel chipset hmm....it might show why nv doesn't want Intel chipset competition for SLI dollars.

Good review.

No doubt a later version of this card will support 1 GB x 2 memory instead of the 512 MB x 2 set up currently offered. When that happens (though lord can only guess the $), this card will be a monster at the higher resolutions, and won't be bandwidth limited. Issue stated is correct, however, nVIDIA really needs to get their drivers up to snuff with multi-monitor support on multi-gpu cards and set ups. Man, two of these on a 790i mobo ought to be a brute.

Man,that thing is fat.
Excellent performance across the board.
I hope R700 can whup its ass...time for a new GPU here :)

if you want a multi gpu card ,better buy a 3870x2 then a 9800gx2 ,
the gx2 is fast but in the most important part of a multi gpu card is the driver support , AMD has a better support then nv . in 1 year this cars is dead.
gx2 is to expensive 600$( almost 2 3870x2 cards )

To completely miss the point of this article, I hope this means the price on the 8800GTX will drop. Even if it is a generation behind now (a year ago I'd be called a heretic, hehe), it still holds up, if the price goes down. Thansk for the benchmarks though. This thing is a beast.

I think that Nvidia should had put at least 768mb of memory per card, it looks kinda bad when you see those 9600 with 1 Gb of memory. And while using fraps on Crysis is an improvement IMO, I think that testing on the ice levels would be important too, since performance goes downhill on the second half of the game.

For example, the performance difference between gpu test 1 (aka beach flyby) and cpu test 2 is very large, since those are the best and worst case scenarios respectively.

Time to snuggle up with my laptop for some late night reading...*giggigy*

Edit: Just finished, very good read, and i cant wait to see what else is in store for the 9 series cards. And i must say the enclosement for the GX2 is BEASTLY to put it in mild terms.

1st! hahaha