9800GTX+ SLI Review

[Jumper118]

i've seen a few people do older card reviews recently. i haven't seen one with sli. i got these 2 beast on thursday  . 
 
To start with i put them in my 939 rig, as my board was one of the first boards to support sli. 
Specs:
Athlon 64 FX-55@2.86ghz on 1.6v
Abit Fatal1ty AN8 SLI 
2x1gb of Corsair XMS DDR Ram
2x Zotac 9800GTX+
all powered by an EVGA Supernova 750B
 
I got these cards off ebay for £47.50 for the pair. I started buy testing them one at a time first to make sure they worked.

I tested the 2 cards on valley separately and did the standard ttl test method, which is to loop  valley on max settings for 30mins. i then recorded the temps and i would then put the cooler card on to, as it would have the most restricted airflow and therefore get the hottest.
Now my board is intersting in the fact the it has a hardware sli key on the board itself. After both cards were stable, it was time to flip that switch!

i then ran into an issue of my own fault. The second card covers the sata ports, and i took the sata cable out to put the second card in! didn't think about putting it back in again.  :rolleyes:  the sata cable i was using would not fit behind the card so luckily i found a smaller right angle cable and it just about fit in. i then put the power connectors in, hooked up the sli bridge and i was really to go!

cards in

power in

sata cable and SLI bridge in








i was using an asus sli bridge, because i don't have an abit one yet.    

 

 
This looked promising and on boot up i have sli working in seconds. i opened after burner and gpuz to keep an eye on the temps and left valley to loop for 30mins...............
 
On coming back i was expecting the temps to be quite high as the cards are stacked one on top of the other with no space to breathe. i stopped valley and opened afterburner to find the top card had only got to 72c and the bottom card had only reached 55c. now the bottom card made me suspicious, as that was much too cool for a gpu that have another very hot gpu above it. So i looked at the gpu usage, and it was 80% on the top gpu and only 30% on the bottom gpu, i was only getting 10% more speed over a single card :angry:.
i was running older drivers, so i thought the scaling would get better with the newer drivers. i downloaded and tested the latest driver and the gpu's were now more evenly powered, but only at 40% usage per gpu. at this point i thought the cpu was bottlenecking (  bottlenecking!) the system so i ran heaven at the same setting that ik ran on my 9800gx2, which i had for 3 whole days and sure enough the 9800gx2 was destroying the 2x98000gtx+, which should have been faster. at this point i gave up with the 939 rig and hatched my new plan.....................................................
 
 
Test system 2 spec (my main rig)
Intel Core i5 2550k@5ghz on 1.395v
MSI Z77 Mpower
2x4gb Corsair Vengance 1600mhz DDR3 Ram
MSI GTX670 PE OC 2x Zotac 9800GTX+
all powered by Be Quiet's Power Zone 650W
 

 
 
There was an instant shock to how much faster the cards were in benchmarks. Here is the true power of SLI 9800GTX+

as you can see they destroy my gt610 which was £32

 

they got a respectable score in hwbot heaven and manged a B grade which is excellent for cards this old

 

then they did this..........

now as you can see, they have not only beaten my gt610 but once overclocked they have beaten my GTX670 and my 24 hour GtX660! WFT!

 

but all this so far has been irrelevant hasn't it? because we all know what the ultimate test of any system is? a game that can not run?.................................................    

 

you ask the right question i'll give you the answer. 

 

The final Clue

 

Answer: It can play crysis 2 with mods! its only in dx9/dx10 because they don't support dx11, but its still playing at playable fps on max settings!

[brownninja97]

that is pretty god damn awesome.

[Shd0w2]

I DEMAND BF4 ULTRA benchmark.

[flibberdipper]

What can one of the cards do (like Battlefield, Far Cry, TF2, etc).

[Jumper118]

I DEMAND BF4 ULTRA benchmark.

that is incorrect i'm afraid. i dont have BF4 

What can one of the cards do (like Battlefield, Far Cry, TF2, etc).

one card on its own is quite slow. thier main downfall is 512mb of ram. you can get 1gb versions that would be better though.

[qwertywarrior]

i owned a 9800GTX sli pc once

[Jumper118]

i owned a 9800GTX sli pc once

you're killing me now. there is only 1 game that can't be played on any system, and it isn't minesweeper or mincraft. thats a pretty big clue right there.

[Levent]

aah great after seeing this i went to ebay and found a working 9800GX2 for 26$ (the shipping is gonna cost more than twice of the price of the card aaaaaaaaaaaaah)

[Jumper118]

aah great after seeing this i went to ebay and found a working 9800GX2 for 26$ (the shipping is gonna cost more than twice of the price of the card aaaaaaaaaaaaah)

i had one for 3 days that i got for £34, but it died so i sent it back and got these instead.   it was surprisingly cool and fast, mind you mine didn't have a shroud on. 

[The_Strict_Nein]

Crysis 3 in 8K?

[Jumper118]

Crysis 3 in 8K?

close enough! i will put the proof of it playing crysis 2 with mods in the op  B)

[ShadowCaptain]

Ah I remember having a 9800GTX

[Jumper118]

beat by one point! like a troll!

[Ryan Leech]

That's a damn sexy build sir! I want to see these cards under water.

 

They would go perfectly with my Pentium D btw

[Jumper118]

That's a damn sexy build sir! I want to see these cards under water.

 

They would go perfectly with my Pentium D btw

the best thing is that they dont need to go under water! i carried on last night and got 2nd place!

[harrynowl]

Can I try them when you're done?

 

Want to do some gaming benchmarks.

[Recon-UK]

I used to max out BFBC2 on a single 9800GTX+ i even OC'd it a good bit, had it paired with my Phenom II 955 on my 790FX board.

[Jumper118]

Can I try them when you're done?

 

Want to do some gaming benchmarks.

you might be waiting a while. they are my main cards now . i dont have many games. i've got crysis 2, metro 2033 and bioshock 1+2

[FireFox]

You have a 9800 GX2, that is goddamn awesome, I love those cards

[Jumper118]

You have a 9800 GX2, that is goddamn awesome, I love those cards

*had. it lasted about 4 days or so

[harrynowl]

*had. it lasted about 4 days or so

What did your 9800GTX/2/SLI replace?

[FireFox]

*had. it lasted about 4 days or so

 

What happened to it?

[Jumper118]

What did your 9800GTX/2/SLI replace?

my gtx 670

What happened to it?

not sure really. i didn't come with a shroud and it came in normal bubble wrap with no anti static bag. i presuming it was slightly damaged in shipping but it took a few power cycles to die . i just sent it back and got  refund.

[FireFox]

my gtx 670

not sure really. i didn't come with a shroud and it came in normal bubble wrap with no anti static bag. i presuming it was slightly damaged in shipping but it took a few power cycles to die . i just sent it back and got  refund.

 

That is a shame, I really want to buy an XFX GX2 and I've come across one on eBay that is making me drool a little (goddamn I'm weird).

[ragedev]

That's a nice CPU overclock. Is it a golden chip?