MSI N9800GT GeForce 9800 GT 512MB Video Card Review

[Apoptosis]

MSI N9800GT GeForce 9800 GT 512MB Video Card Review

The MSI N9800GT 512M OC is a factory overclocked GeForce 9800 GT graphics card that has an improved cooling solution. This sub $120 graphics card has a core clock frequency of 660MHz and the 512MB GDDR3 frame buffer runs at 1900MHz. This is a nice bump up from the factory clocked cards that are 600MHz core and 1800MHz memory. Read on to see how it does and if it can overclock further!

In the time I’ve had to spend with this card, I haven’t really found much to dislike about it. The card has performed well in Folding@Home and in Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. Of course, I didn’t try to push the card to ridiculous resolutions, as gamers that own 24” or 30” monitors probably aren’t looking at sub-$120 video card to run them. Even with Crysis Warhead, where I thought the card could stumble and fall, as many higher priced cards did with the original Crysis, the 9800GT from MSI was able to play the game fairly smoothly at 1280x1024.

Article Title: MSI N9800GT GeForce 9800 GT 512MB Video Card Review
Article URL: http://www.legitreviews.com/article/816/1/
Pricing At Time of Print: $104.99 at Newegg after a $15 MIR

Also a big hand to Scott for his first review ever! The first review is always the hardest to do and it gets only better and easier from there!

[DX]

Just how much faster is it compared to the 9600gso in folding?

[geokilla]

Congratulations Scott and welcome to LR.

I noticed that the 9800GT gained almost 40FPS when overclocked in CoD4. Is that even possible?!

Results: At 1280x1024, the 9800GT scores outstanding in Call of Duty 4, beating it’s predecessor by nearly 10% at stock speed and by nearly 50 frames when overclocked!

The predecessor is a 8800GT WITH 256MB VRAM. It was proven that the 9600GT with 512MB VRAM is usually faster than the 8800GT with 256MB VRAM, so technically, the 8800GT 256MB is not the predecessor to the 9800GT.

Also, how can the 9800GTget better scores than the 8800GTX in 3DMark06. It seems a bit impossible.

[DMB2000uk]

Congratulations Scott and welcome to LR.

I noticed that the 9800GT gained almost 40FPS when overclocked in CoD4. Is that even possible?!

Results: At 1280x1024, the 9800GT scores outstanding in Call of Duty 4, beating it’s predecessor by nearly 10% at stock speed and by nearly 50 frames when overclocked!

The predecessor is a 8800GT WITH 256MB VRAM. It was proven that the 9600GT with 512MB VRAM is usually faster than the 8800GT with 256MB VRAM, so technically, the 8800GT 256MB is not the predecessor to the 9800GT.

Also, how can the 9800GTget better scores than the 8800GTX in 3DMark06. It seems a bit impossible.

Scott is DaIceMan, so he's no stranger

Nvidia has really dropped the ball on the naming schemes and and actual parts, especially how the 8800GT is exactly the same as the 9800GT. Another point to your 'argument' is that the 256MB 8800GT part was announced after the 512MB 8800GT, so makes it a newer design than the part that is the 9800GT.

It's not impossible the GTX is a G80 part, and the 9800GT a G92.

Dan

[geokilla]

Congratulations Scott and welcome to LR.

I noticed that the 9800GT gained almost 40FPS when overclocked in CoD4. Is that even possible?!

Results: At 1280x1024, the 9800GT scores outstanding in Call of Duty 4, beating it’s predecessor by nearly 10% at stock speed and by nearly 50 frames when overclocked!

The predecessor is a 8800GT WITH 256MB VRAM. It was proven that the 9600GT with 512MB VRAM is usually faster than the 8800GT with 256MB VRAM, so technically, the 8800GT 256MB is not the predecessor to the 9800GT.

Also, how can the 9800GTget better scores than the 8800GTX in 3DMark06. It seems a bit impossible.

Scott is DaIceMan, so he's no stranger

Nvidia has really dropped the ball on the naming schemes and and actual parts, especially how the 8800GT is exactly the same as the 9800GT. Another point to your 'argument' is that the 256MB 8800GT part was announced after the 512MB 8800GT, so makes it a newer design than the part that is the 9800GT.

It's not impossible the GTX is a G80 part, and the 9800GT a G92.

Dan

Oh...I never knew that....I need to talk on the forums more

Would the difference between G80 and G92 be that big though? Espicially in CoD4 when the 9800GT was overclocked?

[DMB2000uk]

Well there is the improvement in architecture and also an increase in clockspeed, the 8800GT/9800GT runs at 600Mhz Core/1500Mhz shader, while the 8800GTX runs at 575Mhz Core/1350Mhz shader, the only thing keeping the 8800GTX competitive is its extra VRAM and wider memory bus (384bit GTX vs 256bit GT).

The fact that the 8800GT (and G92 parts) did so well against the other G80 8 series cards is why they were moved over to the 9 series unchanged, if you ask me though, they should have been used as a product refresh and called the 8900 series rather than a whole new gen of cards (which lead to people being very disappointed with the lack of performance jump, as the 7 -> 8 series was huge). In the same line of things, the 9800GTX was actually a 8800GTS (G92) with just a slight clock speed jump.

Dan

[DaIceMan]

Actually, Dan is nearly dead on, aside from the fact that MSI's 9800GT was factory overclocked to 660MHz core and 1625MHz shader.

Granted, the 9800GT isn't a direct successor to the 8800GT I have, this is the reason I included the test results for the 8800GTX as well. I was expecting results to fall somewhere between the 8800GT and GTX, and was very impressed with how well the $120 9800GT did.

As for Folding... the 9800GT running with shaders overclocked to 1820 is running almost 600ppd ahead of the 9600GSO on a Project 5013 work unit.

Thanks all for checking out the review, and thanks Nate and LR for giving me the chance. Hopefully, it's the first of many to come.

[geokilla]

I thought the 9800GTX+ was just a 8800GTX using 55nm and G92 instead of G80.

I still think it's kinda weird that CoD4 got such a huge performance increase once the 9800GT was overclocked.

As for folding...it says that I can generate about 4189PPD for Project 5013. However, since my computers aren't on 24/7, I can't reach that. How much are you getting with the 9800GT? My shaders are topping out at around 1870, but I get EUEs once in a while...not sure if it's caused by the 1.15 client or the high shader speeds.

[DMB2000uk]

It wasn't until they released the '+' version of the 9800GTX that it became a 55nm part (with higher clocks).

All I can presume is that COD4 gets its performance boost on the 8800GT from being a shader intensive game, so the higher clocks help out. You can see here that Nate found out that some games were shader limited (long before the G92 was out) by the difference between the 8800GTX and 8800Ultra's shader clocks.

Dan

[gwolfman]

Not too bad of a card for the price. Thanks for the review. Btw, I didn't see any info on temps. How does the 3rd party cooler perform? Thanks!

[DaIceMan]

I thought the 9800GTX+ was just a 8800GTX using 55nm and G92 instead of G80.

I still think it's kinda weird that CoD4 got such a huge performance increase once the 9800GT was overclocked.

As for folding...it says that I can generate about 4189PPD for Project 5013. However, since my computers aren't on 24/7, I can't reach that. How much are you getting with the 9800GT? My shaders are topping out at around 1870, but I get EUEs once in a while...not sure if it's caused by the 1.15 client or the high shader speeds.

I get nearly 5800ppd on a P5013 work unit. Chewing on a P5016 right now and it's sitting at 5814ppd.

Temps were great. I left the fan on Auto the entire time and I never saw the temps above 62 deg C. After about an hour of Call of Duty 4, I ALT-TAB'd out and the fan was running at 66%. Right now, the card has been running Folding@Home straight through for about 24 hours, temp is sitting at 62 deg C, fan at 63%.

Edit: ^ forgot to mention those temps are with the card running at 690 core, 950 mem, and 1800 shaders. I was able to run the shaders higher, but with the instability of the new core, I back them down just a little to keep from killing work units.

[Gomeler]

Not a half bad card. It's a shame on Nvidia though that they relabeled the 8800GT into the 9800GT along with the 8800GTS -> 9800GTX. At this price point it's hard to ignore the newly released HD4830. Wonder how they'd stand up to each other, I suspect the HD4830 would pull ahead slightly.

[kappage]

im pretty sure i found a typo..

Results: as you can see, the 9800GT scores higher marks than the 8800GT, and even stand up pretty well to the higher priced 8800GTX.

this is on page 7

[tqn]

What are the exact dimensions of this card? I looked everywhere and couldn't find this info. Various reviewers said it is large. My case can't fit a GTX, so I don't know about this card...

[DaIceMan]

It's well smaller than a GTX. I'll get back to you with measurements in just a bit.