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Albatron 9800GX2 Pictures and AMD 780G Update (new)
Albatron 9800GX2 Pictures and AMD 780G Update (new)
Date: March 4th, 2008
Author: Gary Key
 
 

Albatron was kind enough to send a few pics of their upcoming 9800GX2-1GX video card.  Unfortunately, we are still under NDA as to the actual specifications on the card but the power requirements and bracket configuration already tell quite a story.
 
 
 
 
 
AMD 780G Update -
 
We just received several retail 780G boards and started testing for our upcoming roundup in the next few days.  In the meantime, AMD dropped the 8.3 Catalyst build on us today along with version 2 of the AOD utility, both of which will be released in the coming days.  While the 8.3 Catalyst drivers have generated some headaches for us in early CrossFire X testing, their improvements have been dramatic in some areas for us during 780G testing today. 
 
In fact, the improvements in Hybrid CrossFire compatibility, HD playback/image quality, HD and SD HQV testing, along with general bug fixes from the 8.47 RC driver releases has given us enough reasons to retest all of our applications on our 780G launch board from Gigabyte.  So with that, we will start our coverage late today with the chipset introduction, followed by an in-depth analysis of video out-put quality and performance, and then wrapping up it all up with a mini-roundup (ASUS, Gigabyte, J&W, Biostar) of 780G boards with comparisons to the current NV and Intel chipsets. 
 
Unfortunately, the upcoming NVIDIA GeForce 8200 will not be included for a couple of reasons, first, retail boards on not available yet, second, the drivers are still immature to the point of needing separate builds for either PQ or Performance.  After several conversations with the motherboard suppliers, it appears the GF8200 should make its first appearance by the end of March in the retail channels, provided drivers are ready.  Not bad for a chipset semi-released in January. ;-)
 
In the meantime, the AMD 780G boards should be showing up in volume this week for the Americas and European markets.  While Gigabyte, ASUS, J&W, Biostar, and others will have boards "officially" ready this week, it appears we will not see retail boards from the likes of Foxconn, MSI, ASRock, and abit until later this month.  However, we do have pictures of early boards we have been testing from Biostar and MSI below.
 
Update - Final 8.3 Catalyst driver testing is complete, first results later today.
 
MSI K9A2GM -
 
 
Biostar TA780GM2+
 

26 Comments
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What a tease by gigahertz20, 707 days ago
So when does the NDA expire for the 9800GX2? Maybe you can give us some hints as to what the performance will look like....maybe....:)

Reply
8-Pin Connector Sure to Cause Problems by gigahertz20, 707 days ago
I can't wait to hear stories about people plugging in the 8-pin connector for their motherboard into the 8-pin PCIe power connector on the 9800GX2. I haven't even seen a PS that has a 8-pin PCIe power connector yet.

I was reading on another site the NDA expires on March 11th, so I guess in another week all the speculation about it's performance will come to an end.

The Inquirer reported stock speeds will be 600/1000/1500MHz for core, memory and pixel shaders. However, they only reported a 14,000 3DMark06 score with Vista 64 bit on a Q6600 so I highly doubt the article they posted yesterday is true.

http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/...8/03/03/nvidia-9800gx2-clocks-revealed



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RE: 8-Pin Connector Sure to Cause Problems by Margalus, 707 days ago
My pc power and cooling 750W silencer has both 6 and 8 pin pci-e plugs.

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RE: 8-Pin Connector Sure to Cause Problems by Akubane, 706 days ago
My corsair 520hx has 2 8 pin and 2 6 pin connectors...

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RE: 8-Pin Connector Sure to Cause Problems by crimson117, 706 days ago
My Bologna has a first name; it's O-S-C-A-R.

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RE: 8-Pin Connector Sure to Cause Problems by kodiak81, 706 days ago
Mein bratwurst has a second name, it's S-C-H-N-A-C-K-E-N-P-F-E-F-F-E-R-H-A-U-S-E-N.

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sure there are PSUs with the necessary connectors by dwd, 707 days ago
check out the newer power supplies like the Enermax Modu82+ 625W and you'll see that there are 8 to 6 pin adaptable pce power connectors

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8-pin pci-e connectors by C'DaleRider, 707 days ago
[quote]I haven't even seen a PS that has a 8-pin PCIe power connector yet. [/quote]

Then you haven't been looking at ANY power supplies produced in the last year or so, have you? Almost the entire Corsair line has them, my Ultra X3 1kw has several as does the entire X3 line, most of Silverstone's line has them, Seasonic's recent builds have them, PCP&C have them, Gigabyte units have them, BFG 's have them, a whole host of CWT builds have them, Enhance builds have them, Anctec have them, and I could go on and on.....(of course, they're found only on the appropriately sized power output units....you wouldn't expect to find them on much of anything under 400W, would you?)

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RE: 8-pin pci-e connectors by strikeback03, 707 days ago
Also, the HD2900 cards used both a 6 and 8 pin, so this isn't even the first card to use the 8-pin connector.

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Power Saving by kiwik, 707 days ago
I guess power saving is for another day then, with these 2 connectors...

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RE: Power Saving by madgonad, 707 days ago
If you are plugging it into one of their Hybrid Power MBs the discrete video card would only turn on when the 3D power was needed. When running 2D or movies the integrated graphics would be the only video processor running.
So you will only hear the vacuum cleaner fire-up when you turn Crysis on.

Reply
780G Chipset by mamisano, 707 days ago
Can't wait for these boards to finally be released. I have been holding off on building an HTPC so I can use one of these new boards!

Any word on the DTX form factor and 780G boards being produced?

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RE: 780G Chipset by Fallen Kell, 707 days ago
Just wondering why in the world you are building a HTPC on an AMD based CPU at this point in time. Power/cooling savings? Seriously, I am just now rebuilding my HTPC to get off the AMD platform due to performance issues. But then again, I do have 4 tuners and will soon add HD as soon as Haupauge releases their HD component capture device in the next few weeks/months.

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RE: 780G Chipset by bpt8056, 706 days ago
Cost was a big factor when I built my HTPC. Glad to report that my 690G board has run every HD DVD/Blu-ray movie out on the market without a hitch.

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RE: 780G Chipset by jkresh, 706 days ago
Hauppauge is releasing a tuner with component in? Do you have any idea what resolution it can take? I have yet to see one with component in that could do better then 480p (at least for less then $1000).

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RE: 780G Chipset by BigLan, 706 days ago
They mentioned 1080i, I don't think it was 1080p (though maybe I'm wrong.) It's an external box with a hardware mpeg 4 encoder and connects to your pc with usb.

I think the reason they went 1080i was the cpu requirements for playback would have been too high.

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RE: 780G Chipset by BigLan, 706 days ago
stupid double post... looks like it is rumored to be 1080p, here's a link

http://blogs.snapstream.com/2008/02/07/more-on-the-hauppauge-hd-pvr/

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RE: 780G Chipset by BigLan, 706 days ago
They mentioned 1080i, I don't think it was 1080p (though maybe I'm wrong.) It's an external box with a hardware mpeg 4 encoder and connects to your pc with usb.

I think the reason they went 1080i was the cpu requirements for playback would have been too high.

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DRM on 780G and Linux by icthy, 706 days ago
What are the DRM issues for the 780G? Will Linux users have a chance to uses these boards?

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RE: DRM on 780G and Linux by smitty3268, 706 days ago
There's currently no crossfire support in linux. Obviously, though, the other functionality will work.

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=NjM3Mw

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PS2 connectors by fic2, 706 days ago
It looks like both of these boards still contain PS2 connectors. Does anybody around still use/have PS2 keyboards and mice? I certainly would have thought that everyone was using USB by now.

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RE: PS2 connectors by mino, 705 days ago
Yes, many, many people do. And not there is nothing wrong with PS/2 beeing 30yrs old. Our typing speed has not improved anyway ;).

Myself, after experiencing tens of problems with USB keyboards not comming up and so I have even reverted to PS/2 for my non-notebook kayboard/mouse combo. It just works. USB also works, usually ...

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RE: PS2 connectors by mino, 705 days ago
Yeah, should have read the mess after myself ...

BTW, those tens of problems were on tens of different MB and chipset platforms ...

Not to mention a popular situation when Your server does not know Your USB keyboard yet, but to let it install the driver (automatically), You first have to skip some other driver installation dialog box which You are not able to skip as the keyboard does not work, of course ...

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underwhelmed by MadBoris, 706 days ago
I'm still underwhelmed that after 15 months the 9800GX2 is the best nvidia could come up with as generational successor to the 8800GTX.

I wonder if video card performance increases will start to slow down due to, in part, lack of serious competition. Also the demand in PC gaming may just not be there due to consoles fixed HW requirements because todays and tomorrows multiplatform games will keep game requirements pretty static for a while. Obviously there is other improvements to make other than raw speed, which could be good for a change too.

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MSI Board by Myrandex, 706 days ago
That picture really looks like MSI's crappy 690G motherboard. I installed the Giga-byte 780G board into my system 2 weeks ago, and it is very nice! I would never return to that 690G piece of garbage in a motherboard form factor from MSI again unless they seriously tweaked their bios.

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RE: MSI Board by FireTech, 706 days ago
Thanks for the update Gary, certainly looking forward to your full reviews.

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