Originally Posted by Will101
Tarinder - I know this is a new top end product review but it seems decidedly one sided.
You use OCed versions of NVidias comparable current SKUs but reference ATI cards. (To be fair you do point this out in your review)
In all reviews I've seen of the 38** they do well with no AA up to the highest resolutions but are hammered when AA is enabled. I'm don't remember the definitive argument re the need for AA as the res increases to v.high levels but I suspect it is less necessary?
As a pure power tour de force with all setting to the max you've shown the 9800 GX2 to undoubtably shine.
As an intelligent comparison between different manufs top graphics offerings there seems overwhelmingly to me to be a finger on one side of the scales...
Of course you have every right to exercise your right to reply... ;-)
Will101,
All intelligent points.
Anyone seriously contemplating spending £300+ on a video card wants the absolute fastest thing possible, and the point of this card was to be the fastest around. It achieves that aim with consummate ease, as evinced by our benchmark results. It doesn't win by five per cent or 10 per cent. The lead is often 50 per cent, especially at the highest I.Q. settings. Superlative I.Q. is where these cards should excel at, because why would you pay £150+ and still expect to see jaggies at 1,920x1,200?
I personally run a Dell 3007WFP-HC and want to play games at the panel's native resolution of 2,560x1,600. The GeForce 9800 GX2 is the closest that any single card comes to letting me do that with all the eye-candy turned up to maximum.
The card isn't cheap, but it doesn't need to be when it has a significant performance lead over the next-best card. Our HEXUS.bang4buck graph shows that paying the extra, over and above a Radeon HD 3870 X2, brings more-than linear performance gains.
Yes, you're right, overclocked versions of the GeForce 8800 GT and GT 512 have been used, but they're included because we've reviewed them in the recent past. Indeed, practically every NVIDIA partner has released a pre-overclocked SKU based on the G92 core, compared with just a few from the ATI camp.
Does that make the ATI Radeon HD 3870 X2 a bad card? The answer is no, not at all. Quoting from my own Radeon HD 3870 X2 review:
"Is it worth the £279 or so? The answer is a tentative yes, because it achieves top-dog status, in our set of benchmarks at least, from brute power rather than the elegant and well funded developer-relation support that NVIDIA currently enjoys."
The bottom line is that NVIDIA wanted to grab back the mantle of the world's fastest graphics card. The GeForce 9800 GX2 does this, easily.
I'd love the card to be priced at £199, sure, but NVIDIA's pricing, whilst exorbitantly expensive for most, makes sense for the few people that want, and more to the point, can afford, the fastest.
Think of it along the same lines as Intel's Core 2 Quad CPUs vs. AMD's Phenoms. Intel has a performance lead at the very high-end and knows it. The QX9770 is priced at £999 because AMD has nothing that can compete in that space. As much as we malign Intel's pricing, there's little left to argue with respect to performance.
An aside, I believe that ATI has better cards in the £90-£130 range, encompassing the Radeon HD 3850 and 3870 SKUs. I also believe that the best card for around £270 is the Radeon HD 3870 X2. The best card at £399, though, is clearly the GeForce 9800 GX2.