GeForce 9800 GX2

[sickboy 13]

Quote[/b] ]And on top of that support the "sinking ship" (AMD).

Very noble cause, respectable

Not denying nor confirming the "sinking ship" statement,

but AMD has always been the David against Goliath, IMO.

Not to mention the difference in price :-)

Yeah, you can get like 2 HD4870 for the same price as 1 GTX280

Very true :-)

However, as not being a big fan of Crossfire nor SLI, I rather stick to 1 for now. Still makes the 4870 a good candidate as it looks atm.

Surely multi-GPU is the future, but I still hear lots of problems with drivers, systems and games...

[echo1 0]

Good to see that ATI has released a card capable of matching the performance of the top Nvidia card (First time since the X1900XTX of about two years ago). I never liked ATI cards, but as long as they churn out decent cards, they force Nvidia to keep the prices down and make faster cards.

[Silves 0]

Got my gtx280 yesterday and i can say that its just amazing, i used to have a 9800gx2 but the 280 is so much powerfull, even playing in north saharani in the forest in multiplayer, the card never goes down. Im using fraps to see the fps and she never goes below 50, and everything maxed out, minus AA witch i set to "normal".

Much better card than my 9800gx2.

[bangtail 0]

Got my gtx280 yesterday and i can say that its just amazing, i used to have a 9800gx2 but the 280 is so much powerfull, even playing in north saharani in the forest in multiplayer, the card never goes down. Im using fraps to see the fps and she never goes below 50, and everything maxed out, minus AA witch i set to "normal".

Much better card than my 9800gx2.

Glad you like your card, but please dont mislead people by telling them that the 280 is WAY faster than the 9800 GX2, because that quite simply IS NOT true. I have them both and I have tested them both extensively. They are very, very similar in terms of performance. Sometimes the GX2 is faster, sometimes the 280 is faster but the margins are very small.

Personally, for the money, the 280 is too expensive for what it delivers. If it were about $200.00 cheaper, it would be the best purchase hands down. Considering the 4870 is miles cheaper and not that much slower and 2 x 4870 cream a 280 for less than the cost of a single 280, its a hard card to recommend at the price.

Ive seen far too many people saying it is WAY faster than the 9800 GX2 and as much as I know some of you have to justify spending $800.00 on hardware, this simply isnt the case. If you don't believe me, read the MANY online reviews that corroborate this.

Cheers

E

[sickboy 13]

Ethne; You speaking directly about ArmA Performance, or all the other games that are always tested in reviews?

Because I can understand why ppl with Arma and gx2 would see the gtx280 as a lot faster, simply because it seems that SLI has mostly been a problem in ArmA, or am I mistaken?

You're very right about Price. I had to upgrade just after release, but I wish I was able to wait a bit

[bangtail 0]

Ethne; You speaking directly about ArmA Performance, or all the other games that are always tested in reviews?

Because I can understand why ppl with Arma and gx2 would see the gtx280 as a lot faster, simply because it seems that SLI has mostly been a problem in ArmA, or am I mistaken?

I was speaking generally although I find the FPS to be around the same with either card. I will run some proper tests tomorrow and let you know how they turn out.

E

PS : Quickly tested now -

Using the mission "delivery boy" with Fraps.

1920 x 1200

All settings @ Vhigh (except AA @ high)

9800 GX2 - between 32 and 50

GTX 280  - between 34 and 49

Its not exactly scientific and Ill try to run some more comprehensive tests over the weekend, but it pretty much speaks for itself.

System

Intel QX6700 @ 3.2 Ghz

Asus P5Q Deluxe

8 GB Corsair 6400 DDR2

2 x Velociraptor 300 GB

2 x Hitachi 1 TB

1 x BFG 9800 GX2

1 x BFG GTX 280

1 x SB X-Fi Fatality

1 x LG DVD

OS - Vista 64

Driver - 177.41

E

[bangtail 0]

You're very right about Price. I had to upgrade just after release, but I wish I was able to wait a bit

The price and the fact that there will be a cheaper version with a die shrink before long. That means less power consumption and less heat. I don't regret buying it, I just object to the price and the fact that almost 2 years later, it isnt that much better than an overclocked 8800/9800.

Still, we early adopters know the pitfalls of buying new hardware.

E

[Nowyoudie 0]

I thought the 3870 was actually pretty good, lol, but I've got a friend who will buy it off me and I can get a 4870. I play at 1920x1200 so I'm having a hard time deciding which to get, the 4870 or the MSI NX 260GTX that is going for $299 on Newegg.

[sickboy 13]

Tnx for sharing ethne!

So you were able to get good and stable results with GX2, even though all the rumours / reports of problems with ArmA and SLI etc?

I'm hoping for more improvements with drivers etc. Switching to 4870x2 or alike might be an option incase it doesn't improve much

Hoping for some results from ppl with the 4870 & ArmA

@Nowyoudie, if the choice would be between gtx260 and 4870, I would probably go for the 4870, at least the best news are about them atm

[bangtail 0]

2 x 4870 (until 4870x2) is by far the best route at the moment IMHO. I have ordered 2 from tigerdirect. They are significantly faster than a 280 and have GDDR5 memory as well. I find the 9800 GX2 performs comparably to the 280 with ArmA and I wonder if some people just dont have their systems correctly configured.

For those of you who have the black screen and repeating sound with the 280 or the 9800 GX2, it is more than likely an IRQ problem. If the card is sharing IRQs with the sound card or the USB controller, it would be advisable to change the IRQ. IRQs should co-exist but Vista's IRQ management seems to have some kinks as I have yet to see this happen in XP.

E

[sickboy 13]

2 x 4870 (until 4870x2) is by far the best route at the moment IMHO. I have ordered 2 from tigerdirect. They are significantly faster than a 280 and have GDDR5 memory as well. I find the 9800 GX2 performs comparably to the 280 with ArmA and I wonder if some people just dont have their systems correctly configured.

For those of you who have the black screen and repeating sound with the 280 or the 9800 GX2, it is more than likely an IRQ problem. If the card is sharing IRQs with the sound card or the USB controller, it would be advisable to change the IRQ. IRQs should co-exist but Vista's IRQ management seems to have some kinks as I have yet to see this happen in XP.

E

I've always had distaste for SLI and CrossFire because you hear so many ppl complaining. If you are telling me that they are just noobs :P And it actually works just fine in most games, then I might reconsider.

The 4870 has a smaller memory bus, but uses gddr5, and optimized it's architecture around this, gtx280 has wider memory bus, but uses gdd3, and optimized it's architecture around this.

iirc ati's mem bandwidth is somewhat under nvidia's, however, with their current architecture it seems to be enough anyway :P

[Placebo 28]

I just read this thread from top to bottom, excellent example of how a pissed off, frustrated gamer can go from angry posts at the start, to satisfied, happy gaming posts at the end, thanks to the superb cooperation and patience of the community, thanks to everyone who helped.

That said, this thread has now turned into a debate on which graphics cards to buy, which doesn't belong in here, by all means discuss such things in the pinned PC thread in OT.

I'll leave this thread open though as it may well serve to help other people who also buy a 9800GX2, and considering I have a 9800GTX arriving tomorrow I need to keep you all sweet in case I also need help

[sickboy 13]

You are right, we naughty boys

Nice to read about your upgrade

All hail placebo