NVIDIA nForce 790i SLI Ultra and GeForce 9800 GX2
Enter the GeForce 9800 GX2
As we mentioned earlier, the second new addition to NVIDIA's ultimate gaming platform is the GeForce 9800 GX2. Although this is the first product to be released in the GeForce 9800 series, it is not based on a brand new GPU. The GeForce 9800 GX2 is built around NVIDIA's proven G92 GPU, that first debuted on the GeForce 8800 GT. On the GeForce 9800 GX2, however, all of the GPU's stream processors (128) are exposed, just like on the GeForce 8800 GTS 512MB. With two GPUs powering the board, that means it has a total 256 stream processors at its disposal, in addition to 1GB of DDR3 memory - 512MB per GPU.
Due to the fact that the GeForce 9800 GX2 is built around an existing GPU, we won't delve deeply in to the GPU architecture. We've covered the G92 and detailed its features a few previous articles, so we won't do it again here. If you'd like to read more about the GPU specifically, we recommend perusing these three previous HotHardware articles:
- NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT: G92 Take Flight
- NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTS Refresh
- NVIDIA Hybrid SLI and nForce 700a Chipsets
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| Fabrication Process | 65nm |
| Total Number of Transistors | 1010 milltion |
| Core Clock (Including dispatch, texture units, and ROP units) | 600MHz |
| Shader Clock (Stream Processors) | 1500MHz |
| Processor Cores | 256 |
| Memory Clock (Clock Rate / Date Rate) | 1000MHz / 2000MHz |
| Memory Interface | 256-bit |
| Total Memory Bandwidth | 128GB/s |
| Total Video Memory | 1024MB |
| 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 | 400MHz |
| 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 | 105ºC |
The main features and specifications for the GeForce 9800 GX2 are listed above. As you can see, the GPU is built using a 65nm fabrication process. On stock GeForce 9800 GX2 cards, the GPUs are clocked at 600MHz, with a 1.5GHz shader clock, and 1GHz memory. If you recall, the GeForce 8800 GTS 512MB's GPU is clocked at 670MHz with 900MHz memory, so a pair of GTS cards running in SLI mode will offer higher shader performance and fillrate, but less memory bandwidth. Keep that in mind as you look through the benchmark results that appear a little later in this article.
The GeForce 9800 GX2 offers a total of 128GB/s of memory bandwidth, with a 1GB frame buffer (512MB per GPU), 32 ROPs (16 per GPU), and 128 Texture Filtering Units (64 per GPU), for a total of 76.8GigaTexels/sec.
Not listed here are some new PureVideo HD related features that have been exposed in the G9x series of GPUs. In addition to all of the previous PureVideo HD related features available on other GeForce graphics cards, the 9800 GX2 has support for Dynamic Contrast Enhancement, Dynamic Color Enhancement, and Dual-Stream Decode. If you've ever corrected a digital photo's color and contrast in a program like Photoshop, you'll be familiar with how the Dynamic Color and Contrast Enhancements work. Each frame in a digital video is "corrected" to adjust for poor quality recording or mastering. And the Dual-Stream Decode allows the GeForce 9800 GX2 to accelerate two video streams simultaneously, which helps reduce CPU utilization when playing back Blu-Ray or HD DVD disks that have PiP functionality.
