Albatron 9800GX2 Pictures and AMD 780G Update (new)
by Gary Key on March 4, 2008 12:15 AM EST- Posted in
- Gary's First Looks
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+
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gigahertz20 - Tuesday, March 4, 2008 - link
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/news/2008/0...">http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/...8/03/03/...
crimson117 - Tuesday, March 4, 2008 - link
My Bologna has a first name; it's O-S-C-A-R.kodiak81 - Tuesday, March 4, 2008 - link
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.Akubane - Tuesday, March 4, 2008 - link
My corsair 520hx has 2 8 pin and 2 6 pin connectors...Margalus - Tuesday, March 4, 2008 - link
My pc power and cooling 750W silencer has both 6 and 8 pin pci-e plugs.gigahertz20 - Tuesday, March 4, 2008 - link
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....:)