XFX GeForce 9800 GT 512MB XXX Edition

Overclocking

We overclocked the XFX GeForce 9800 GT 512MB XXX Edition graphics card using RivaTuner v2.22 to increase the clock speeds and Far Cry 2 to check that the card was stable at the higher speeds.

We increased the frequencies by 5MHz at a time, testing for visual corruption and throttling with Far Cry 2 under DirectX 10 at each incremental boost.

As a quick reminder, the XFX GeForce 9800 GT 512MB XXX Edition comes factory overclocked at 670MHz core, 1,600MHz shader and 1,950MHz (effective) on the memory, and we were keen to see how much extra performance we could ring out of the card.

After a bit of time tweaking and stress testing, we settled on a final overclock of 750MHz on the core, 1,800MHz on the shader and 2,100MHz (effective) on the memory – whopping overclocks we’re sure you’ll agree, especially as the card already comes heavily overclocked.

That core clock is especially impressive, a whole 25 percent faster than a stock 8800 GT, with the shader improved by 20 percent over a stock card and the memory improved by 17 percent - awesome overclocking performance which translates into an extra three frames per second in Far Cry 2 at 1,680 x 1,050 with 4xAA. Just remember that our review sample isn’t necessarily indicative of every card and as always with overclocking, your mileage may vary!

Looking to the card’s thermal performance, we found the XFX GeForce 9800 GT 512MB idled a good 5°C cooler than a stock GeForce 8800 GT, coming in at just 49°C and at load was a full 10°C cooler than the stock card, running at 84°C.

However, we’re pretty sure it’s only able to do so thanks to spinning up the card’s cooling fan at a much lower temperature – on the XFX GeForce 9800 GT the fan spins up to full speed at 80°C, becoming very audible in the process, even from the other side of the office. Comparably the stock 8800 GT is very well behaved even under heavy load for extended periods, and never really becomes audible over the background noise of the other fans in the system – a bit of a disappointment and the first place where the XFX GeForce 9800 GT has really put a foot wrong.

Sadly power consumption was also a little disappointing, with the XFX GeForce 9800 GT 512MB sucking down a full ten watts more at load than a stock 9800 GT (215W vs. 205W). While that’s not a great deal, and there is the overclocked core, shader and memory to take into account, that’s still a big jump for an overclocked card, although idle power consumption was the same with either card installed in our system at 105 watts.

Value and Final Thoughts

Despite packing performance that’s a good few frames per second faster than a stock 9800 GT (or the identical 8800 GT for that matter), and overclocking like an absolute BEAST, the XFX GeForce 9800 GT 512MB XXX Editon isn’t perfect. At load, its noisy little cooling fan spins up much too early, and will start to annoy after a while, especially as it doesn’t really seem to take a whole lot of graphics crunching to get it going.

It's competition that’s the biggest downfall for this card though. Despite boxing for position with the ATI Radeon HD 4830 512MB throughout our benchmark suite, the XFX GeForce 9800 GT is a good £20 more expensive now that 4830s can be picked up for a teeny bit more than £90. At that price it’s hard to look beyond ATI’s little bang for buck wonder and if you’re really set on spending close to £120 on a graphics card then a stock Radeon HD 4850 for £119.95 offers more go than the 9800 GT in the majority of tests - just be sure to bring some oven mitts as that stock cooler gets ludicrously hot even when idle.

Even competition from other Nvidia board partners is tough, with a stock 9800 GT from Zotac coming in at just £90 – a tidy saving of over £25 for only a little less performance and you’ll still get the Nvidia exclusive features like PhysX and CUDA that an ATI card will lack.

The mid range graphics market is well known for being extremely hostile and it really looks like the XFX 9800 GT 512MB XXX Edition is something of a victim right now. While there is extra performance here in comparison to a stock 9800 GT, as well as plenty of overclocking headroom and a nice little bundle, the price premium is just too much, especially in comparison to £90 4830s and stock 9800 GTs. If it were closer to £100, it’d be a much more attractive prospect, but as it stands the XFX 9800 GT 512MB XXX Edition is just too expensive to be worth considering alongside the bloodthirsty mid-range competition.

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Score Guide