9800GX2 30% faster than 8800 Ultra

"RF" wrote in message
...
The difference between the 3870X2 and the 9800GX2 is that the ATI offering
has both GPUs on one PCB. That'll make for a lot less heat, which
definitely is a limiting factor with the dual-PCB design of nVidia's
offerings. Which is why they had to underclock the cores on the 7950GX2
by about 15% versus a normal 7900.

That was the case with the 7950GX2 - the 2nd fan breathes through a tiny PCB
cutout below the first fan.

On the 9800GX2 the cooling system is covered by the shroud, so it's hard to
see. There appears to be one double-width fan blowing across both PCBs, with
the hot air eventually exiting the top of each card. This should work very
well, possibly better than the 3870X2's (where we may see a temperature
difference between the two GPUs because one is farther from the fan).

Crossfire also works differently than SLI, so you get benefits from it no
matter what the game, I think. At least, it's not as finicky.

In my experience with two X1900XTs, Crossfire is even more finicky. The
biggest drawback to the 3870X2 is its lower performance. A single 8800GTX
(soon to be 9800GTX) is almost as fast in most games as 3870 Crossfire.

--
"War is the continuation of politics by other means.
It can therefore be said that politics is war without
bloodshed while war is politics with bloodshed."

On Mon, 07 Jan 2008 17:38:42 -0500, "Mr.E Solved!"
wrote:

From TH's:

"We don't know yet if the GeForce 9800GX2, which is supposed to be 30%
faster than the 8800 Ultra, will support Quad SLI configurations.

The expected price: around $449 US. Expected announcement date: February
14, 2008."

Something isn't right: Is thee comment that the 9800GX2 is 30% faster
than 8800 Ultra *SLI*, or a single 8800 Ultra? They do not mention SLI
in the above comment and are unclear.

If the 980GX2 is only 30% faster than a single 8800 Ultra, being two
cards, that implies a single 9800 card is about 2/3rds as fast as a
single 8000GTX. That can't be correct!


Move on. A placeholder to help maximize the sale of current
8800-series chips. Wait for the next-gen GPUs from nVidia. Expect
around mid-2008... and well worth waiting for if you are into
bleeding-edge graphics performance. Plus much expanded GPGPU
capability within the same silicon.... for those interested in such
capability for massive parallel number-crunching.

John Lewis