NVIDIA along with its partners recently released the GeForce 9800 GX2. The GeForce 9800 GX2 combines the two GeForce 9800 GPUs in a single graphics solution, which offers 256 processor cores and a frame buffer of 1 GB (512 MB per GPU). With a launch price of $599 - $649, the GeForce 9800 GX2 is close to the same price the GeForce 8800 GTX launched at. It also allows a user to take advantage of the second-generation Quad SLI technology.
First Impression:
About NVIDIA:
"NVIDIA (Nasdaq: NVDA) is the world leader in visual computing
technologies and the inventor of the GPU, a high-performance processor
which generates breathtaking, interactive graphics on workstations,
personal computers, game consoles, and mobile devices.
NVIDIA serves the entertainment and consumer market with its GeForce®
products, the professional design and visualization market with its
Quadro™ products, and the high-performance computing market with its
Tesla™ products.
These products are transforming visually-rich and
computationally-intensive applications such as video games, film
production, broadcasting, industrial design, financial modeling, space
exploration, and medical imaging."
Today we are taking a look at one of NVIDIA GeForce 9800 GX2 reference cards. For those capable of playing with the latest and greatest cards, you might have seen that there was a lot of speculations about the card before its release. The GeForce 9800 GX2 is the second dual GPU card that NVIDIA has released (the first being the 7950 version which left some users rather disappointed). Well hopefully the GeForce 9800 GX2 provides a little more satisfaction for its price. Above we can see that the card is huge.
The above shots show the breakdown of the GeForce 9800 GX2. The first thing I found myself wondering when I seen the GeForce 9800 GX2, was how it would cope with the heat that its GPU's produced. As you can see in the second picture. The cooling is sandwiched between the PC boards, we will discuss this a little later on.
GeForce 9800 GX2 Specifications
Fabrication process
65nm
Total Number of Transistors
1508 million
Core Clock (Including dispatch, texture units, and ROP units)
600 MHz
Shader Clock (Stream Processors)
1500 MHz
Processor Cores
256
Memory Clock (Clock rate / Data rate)
1000 MHz / 2000 MHz
Memory Interface
256 bit
Total Memory Bandwidth
128 GB/s
Total Video Memory
1024 MB
ROPs
32
Texture Filtering Units
128
Texture Filtering Rate
76.8 GigaTexels/sec
HDCP Support
Yes
HDMI Support
Yes
Connectors
2 x Dual-Link DVI-I 1 x HDMI
RAMDACs
400 MHz
Bus Technology
PCI Express 2.0
Form Factor
Dual Slot
Power Connectors
1 x 6-pin 1 x 8-pin
Max Board Power
197 watts
GPU Thermal Threshold*
105° C
GeForce 9800 GX2 Features
Unified Architecture
Lumenex Engine
128 Bit FP HDR (High Dynamic Rendering)
GIGA Thread: Batch processing / Load Balancing
Quantum Engine: Embedded Physics features
DirectX 10 support
SLI Support
HDCP Capable
Dual-Link DVI
HDMI Capable with the use of HDMI Certified components
