We’ve been talking a lot about 9800 GTX cards these days, and today is no exception. Euphoria caused by overclocked Geforce 9800 GTXs is slowly dying down, so we’ve got a difficult task of pointing out the GTXs that will stay in our memories as good overclockers. We’ve already seen that 9800 GTX speeds can easily hit 800MHz, which is 125MHz more than reference 675MHz, and sometimes even further.

A large dual slot cooler keeps the G92 within 74 degrees Celsius, so we’ve been expecting some nicely overclocked cards from Nvidia’s partners. Nvidia initially launched only the reference versions of the cards, whereas the green light for overclocking came on 8th of April when partners got to show off their 9800 GTX craft. Different variations of G92 are already on the market, and the fastest cards run at 770MHz.



On our today’s menu we have XFX 9800 GTX Black Edition card running at 760MHz, which means that it’s one of the fastest 9800 GTXs out there. Apart from the fast core, GTX Black Edition also features memory overclocked to 1140MHz, and the shaders are at 1900MHz.

In order to reach these speeds XFX didn’t have to replace the cooler, which is fine since it does a good job. Dual slot design enables hot air to be pushed out of your rig, and keep the card’s temperatures at bay.



The cooler covers the entire surface of the card and makes it look sleek and stylish. It only has a couple of open spots reserved for air outlets, power cable and audio SPDIF connector. Under a workload, we could hear the fan, but it still didn’t get too loud. As far as appearance goes, the sticker is the only thing that makes this card different from any other 9800 GTX.



You probably thought, because we certainly did, that the fastest thing from XFX will be 9800 GTX XXX but Black Edition surprised us. Although 9800 GTX XXX runs at 740MHz, Black Edition simply outshone it.



Maximum consumption goes up to 156 Watts, but since XFX is overclocked you have to add a couple of W for the worst case scenarios. The card is powered through two power connectors placed on the upper side of the card. The card is 28 centimeters long and will fit in most cased, but you should still be careful since it’s longer than most ATX standard motherboards.

The card is black, just like the box, but other than that it’s physically identical to reference cards. 512MB of memory in eight Samsung memory chips forms a semicircle around the core. The cooler leans on the memory, core and power components (VRM) which helps the card with stability at higher speeds. Memory interface is 256bit.



The I/O panel features two dual link DVI outs, and HDMI+HDCP+Audio are supported through the HDMI adapter, that’s included in the box. In order to enjoy HDMI with sound, you’ll have to route the sound from your soundcard’s/motherboard’s SPDIF out and onto your graphics card.

Good multimedia features of the new GTX are only a part of what this card can do. HybridPower support means it’s not just a faster version of 8800 GTS (G92) card, but that it’s got a couple of aces up its sleeve. In order to take advantage of HybridPower technology, you’ll have to use the latest nForce 7 series motherboard with integrated graphics, and that will save you a lot of power. In a scenario when you’re on your desktop or viewing HD content and you don’t need your graphics card’s GPU, integrated graphics will kick in and discrete graphics will power down. TriSLI is also featured on this card so this card packs two SLI connectors.

Geforce 9800 GTX is a third card from Nvidia’s 9th series. This card, as well as other versions based on G92, feature PCI Express 2.0 x16 interface, they’re DirectX10 ready and have PureVideo HD technology, that makes sure you get a good and quality HD multimedia experience.

The card comes wrapped in a big black box, and XFX provided a treat for all gamers – Assassin’s Creed. We gave it a go during our breaks and testing, and we definitely recommend it. The graphics are nice and the speed and motion of the main character are excellent. At 1920x1200 and 4x Antialiasing, the game ran flawlessly and resulted in over 100 fps (updated - actually over 50 fps at 1920x1200 with max details) , so our gaming went without a hitch.




 






Testbed:

Motherboard:
EVGA 680i SLI (Supplied by EVGA)

Processor:
Intel Core 2 Duo 6800 Extreme edition (Supplied by Intel)

Memory:
OCZ FlexXLC PC2 9200 5-5-5-18  (Supplied by OCZ)
        na testu CL5-5-5-15-CR2T 1066MHz at 2.2V

PSU:
OCZ Silencer 750 Quad Black (Supplied by OCZ)

Hard disk:
Seagate Barracuda 7200.9 80GB SATA (Supplied by Seagate)

CPU-Cooler:
Freezer 7 Pro (Supplied by Artic Cooling)

Case Fans:
Artic Cooling - Artic Fan 12 PWM
Artic Cooling - Artic Fan 8 PWM


XFX 9800 GTX Black Edition card runs at 760MHz, which is an 85MHz overclock since reference speed is 675MHz. We tried to overclock it even further and we succeeded. The card ran happily at 820MHz, but at those speeds memory refused to clock over 1140MHz. The overclocked memory can go over 1200MHz, but we simply couldn’t make it run with 820MHz core at those speeds. We were running on a tight schedule and didn’t have much time to make it run stable, so we just clocked the core to 800MHz and memory to 1170MHz, where it ran stable.



Futuremark

Games



In our first game, Company of Heroes, Black Edition slightly outperformed Zotac 9800 GTX AMP card. That came as no surprise since both cards run at more or less identical speeds. Compared to Gainward’s card at reference 675MHz, 9800 GTX Black is a champ (almost up to 12%) and in this game it even managed to beat Ultra.




Just like Company of Heroes, F.E.A.R. revealed a slight advantage of this XFX card over the rest of the 9800 GTX pack. At lower resolutions it outperforms Zotac, but at higher resolutions that advantage dissolved.





 
Conclusion

We were pleased with the fact that XFX didn’t overlook overclocking and that they keep offering new graphics cards. Geforce 9800 GTX Black Edition is a special card that many will grow fond of. It packs flagship features and you’ll also get Assassin’s Creed, the game that only recently became available.

GTX Black card’s core runs at 760MHz, which is a high overclock compared to reference 675MHz. The card features a dual slot cooler that keeps temperatures in check, whereas the cooler is a bit louder, but not unbearably. If you ever decide on upgrading your system remember that you can do it twice, because 9800 GTX is TriSLI ready. The new technology called HybridPower will definitely help save some power, and it won’t affect performance because integrated or discrete GPU will run as needed. 9800 GTX’s video engine is Nvidia’s current best offer so you don’t have to worry if multimedia is your game.

We’ve seen that the XFX 9800 GTX Black card is on par with Zotac’s overclocked AMP version, but we really liked XFX’s gift better. Compared to reference cards, overclocked GPU scores up to 15% better in games we tested it in.

We sincerely recommend it, and the EU price of around €290 seems to be appropriate.