As usual after these (un)expected success, competition “returned fire”. GeForce 9800GX2 is not, to be honest, a true rival to ATi’s “two-headed beast” neither by price nor by performances and it is obvious that nVIDIA won’t produce only “singleGPU” models after HD 3870X2.

nVIDIA came out with G92 chip in GeForce models from eighth series but with intention to promote this quality GPU for a while, so we can expect G92 also in ninth series. If that’s the case, it will be the first time in nVIDIA’s history that one chip has that long shelf life. This is not bragging because there are few logical reasons for that. When G92 appeared on market, GeForce 8800GT 512 MB was very popular and it could easily be marked by ninth series like it was GeForce 9600GT. If they did that, selling figures of graphics cards based on G80 chip would be much lower. That’s how everything turned fine for nVIDIA and we will remember G92 for a long time.  Now GeForce 9 series is presented and “singleGPU” graphics card just couldn’t be a top model of new “line-up”. That role was assigned to GeForce 9800GX2, which actually is two 9800GTX or 8800GTS 512 MB joined in one card but on lower clock. Specifications for GeForce 9800GTX and 8800GTS are almost identical. As a matter of fact 9800GX2 is built around two fully functional G92 chips at 600 MHz for GPU, stream processors at 1500 MHz and memory at 2GHz. Memory bus is separated for each GPU in amounts of 2x256 bits. Memory is consisted of DDR3 chips in amount of 1GB. These specifications are determined by nVIDIA and matches with our XFX which is practically reference card with XFX logo on it.

XFX GeForce 9800GX2 came in small but heavy package. In the box we found Company of Heroes with DX10 patch disc. Besides that you get all basic elements such as: cables, VGA-DVI convertor, disc with drivers and manual. Graphics card itself is massive and “brick” like, completely black except XFX logo and has little openings for better cooling. Fan inside graphics card body doesn’t produce a lot of noise until 60% of its maximum RPM. Present voltage connectors are one 8-pin and one 6-pin and they require 200W of power. Interesting accessories are two LEDs in each power connector that signalize if graphics card gets enough power. On front panel there are two DVI and one S-Video connectors.