The Nvidia GeForce 9800 GTX+ is another victim of Nvidia's baffling product naming policy. The 9800 GTX comprised an 8800 GTX with a die-shrink from 90nm to 65nm and higher clock frequencies. Not content with this upgrade, a new revision was released in the form of the 9800 GTX+, which featured a further die-shrink and an additional increase in clock frequencies.
The 9800 GTX GPU runs at 650MHz, whereas the 9800 GTX+ is clocked at 738MHz. The frequency of the 128 stream processors has also increased from 1.688GHz to 1.836GHz, while the 512MB of GDDR3 memory remains the same at 1.1GHz (2.2GHZ effective).
There isn't a massive performance difference between the two models in many games. However, despite the 9800 GTX+ having the edge, neither card could run Crysis Warhead smoothly. Fallout 3 and X3: Terran Conflict were playable, with both models capable of running them smoothly at 1,920 x 1,200 with 4x AA and 8x AF. The biggest difference between the two cards was in Far Cry 2, in which the 9800 GTX+ was able to play the game smoothly at 1,680 x 1,050 with 2x AA, while the 9800 GTX could only manage a smooth frame rate at 1,280 x 1,024 with 2 x AA. Both models are very good at folding, with the 9800 GTX and 9800 GTX+ producing 4,997ppd and 5,529ppd respectively.
Although the 9800 GTX is beginning to struggle in some games, you'd have to spend a significant amount of money to achieve a decent performance boost. In contrast, the faster 9800 GTX+ is up to the challenge of playing most games, bar Crysis Warhead. Given that it retails for roughly £30 less than the 1GB HD 4850, it's a worthwhile upgrade from an entry-level or older graphics card.
Author: James Gorbold & Mark Mackay
Custom PC Online