Nvidia GeForce 9800 GT and 512MB 8800 GT Skokie IL

While some people might be wondering why these two cards from apparently different series have been paired up for review, some readers will be more familiar with Nvidia's befuddling, bewildering and discombobulating naming shenanigans of late. The GPUs used in these cards differ in only one respect - the 9800 GT has a tiny chip that enables a pretty useless feature, Hybrid Power, which is only compatible with a handful of undesirable motherboard chipsets using integrated graphics.

The GeForce 9800 GT and 8800 GT are based around a GPU manufactured on a 65nm process, which runs at 600MHz. The GPUs feature 112 stream processors clocked at 1.5GHz, and 512MB of GDDR3 memory running at 900MHz (1.8GHz effective).

It was no surprise that the cards scored identical frame rates when playing our test games. Both cards were more than up to the challenge of Fallout 3 and X3: Terran Conflict, providing minimum frame rates of more than 40fps. Both GPUs achieved a minimum frame rate of 24fps in Far Cry 2, which is 1fps shy of our definition of playable, but still reasonably smooth. Crysis Warhead was also a struggle for these GPUs, but the minimum frame rate of 18fps means that you won't have to sacrifice too many quality settings to run the game smoothly. Both GPUs were excellent at Folding@home, managing an output of 4,459ppd.

Although the 8800 GT and 9800 GT struggle in some games, they're clearly the most powerful GPUs available for around £100. You'd be a fool to buy anything else, especially as the price of the 9800 GT is coming down.

Author: James Gorbold & Antony Leather

Nvidia GeForce 9800 GT and 512MB 8800 GT