On Fri, 13 Mar 2009 00:00:01 -0400, "First of One"
brought the following to our attention:

http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=14551

Took me two attempts before I completely understood the last paragraph:

"The existence of the 9800 GT OC is a bit of a mystery, however. Its
specifications are similar to the old GeForce 9800 GTX, but it will be a
niche product that will end up competing against itself in the form of the
9800 GTX+/GTS 250."

The thing is.. nVIDIA doesn't employ vast thousands of employees as
parts and component suppliers, salesman, and mechanics. From looking
over the specs it seems like the 9800 GTX and 9800 GT OC are clocked
faster. Was also looking at a 1GB 98GT OC in the store today. Many GTX's
are dual width for extra cooling. Reducing feature size (i.e. to 55 nm)
usually means lower voltages and less power requirements / dissipation.

My recently acquired 9800 GT with 512MB isn't as power-hungry as led to
believe some months ago. In the few days that it's been running, some
data has been collected on it's temperature and fan.:

http://home.comcast.net/~flightsim/GPU_temp.gif

http://home.comcast.net/~flightsim/Italy_mem_data.gif

The core temp has just crossed north of 60°C with the fan speeds still
low. That means it could probably be over-clocked a good bit while still
running cool enough. The case is well ventilated and it's fans `hunt´
now that the 9800 GT is in there. Sounds like it's breathing!! )

-G


P.S.

FSX is working very well thus far, and I'm just delighted with what it
can do. It might be worth picking up a 1GB 9800 GTX dual-width with
heat out-da'-back vent (and clock with it) just to see what it could do.