How much power does 55nm save?

As far as we know, the GTX+ is a simple die shrink of G92 so the only differences between it and the regular 9800 GTX are clock speeds and power consumption.

Luckily EVGA sent us one of their GeForce 9800 GTX KO cards, which happens to be clocked at virtually the same speed as the upcoming GTX+:

  9800 GTX+ EVGA 9800 GTX KO 9800 GTX
Core Clock 738MHz 738MHz 675MHz
Shader Clock 1836MHz 1836MHz 1690MHz
Memory Clock 1100MHz 1125MHz 1100MHz
Price Point $229 $209 - $239 $199

 

With the 9800 GTX KO you can get the performance of the GTX+ today, without waiting for July 16th for availability. What you do lose out on however is power. At idle the new 55nm chip draws about 3% less power than the overclocked 9800 GTX and actually draws 8.7% more power than the stock-clock 65nm 9800 GTX.

 

Under load, the GTX+ once again draws around 3% less power than EVGA's KO edition, it would seem that the move to 55nm actually doesn't buy NVIDIA much in the way of power savings.

The Test

We're keeping the commentary to a minimum here as this is a quick preview, we'll have a full performance analysis of the entire AMD and NVIDIA product lineups early tomorrow morning as the NDA lifts on AMD's Radeon HD 4870.

Test Setup
CPU Intel Core 2 Extreme QX9770 @ 3.20GHz
Motherboard EVGA nForce 790i SLI
Intel DX48BT2
Video Cards ATI Radeon HD 4850
ATI Radeon HD 3870 X2
ATI Radeon HD 3870
EVGA GeForce 9800 GTX KO
NVIDIA GeForce 9800 GTX+
NVIDIA GeForce 9800 GTX
NVIDIA GeForce 9800 GX2
NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTX
NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 280
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 260
Video Drivers Catalyst Press Driver (8.7 beta)
Catalyst 8.5
ForceWare 177.34 (for GT200)
ForceWare 177.39 (for 9800 GTX+)
ForceWare 175.16 (everything else)
Hard Drive Seagate 7200.9 120GB 8MB 7200RPM
RAM 4 x 1GB Corsair DDR3-1333 7-7-7-20
Operating System Windows Vista Ultimate 64-bit SP1
PSU PC Power & Cooling Turbo Cool 1200W
Index Crysis & Call of Duty 4
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  • pishers - Thursday, June 26, 2008 - link

    in the UK it is possible to get an hd 4870 for less than an overclocked 9800gtx that runs the same values as the gtx+, and the 9800gtx+ is more the £100 more than the hd 4850 that is the one it competes with! does anyone else think nvidia have dropped the ball with this one?

    if i was to buy a new card i wouldnt even consider an nvidia one at this point in time.
  • bill3 - Wednesday, June 25, 2008 - link

    You didn't tell me the most basic things like what settings the games are at. Crysis runs at 31.3 with 9800GTX+ I see at 1600X1200, but wait, what settings? What DX version? This is pitiful guys. Just pitiful. The most basic of information lacking.

    And another thing, stop benching at 1600X1200 and use 1680X1050, like everybody on earth's widescreen LCD is. Using basic common LCD res's seems like another no-brainer to me.

    And what's with giving me a graph of one uber high res at one setting for each game, instead of several?

    Anand GPU reviews have gone way downhill, guys. Funny, a chinese site leaked a 4870 review yesterday, and there review was actually more complete and thorough than almost any western site posts these days. More benches, more games, more resolutions, actually listing the settings (crazy idea), and extremely handy summary % +/- comparisons with all major competing cards. From the major western sites now (Tom's, FS, etc) we tend to get spotty reviews each with major flaws.
  • arkcom - Wednesday, June 25, 2008 - link

    Notice, this is a PREVIEW.
  • bill3 - Wednesday, June 25, 2008 - link

    My complaints apply to all Anandtech recent reviews, basically that aren't handled by Anand himself. If you read them you might notice such things as omitting tested game settings are the norm.

    Although, I was wrong about the 1680X1050 thing. I noticed that the other multi-line graph does have 1680X1050. Although 16X12 shouldnt be the main bar graph spotlighted on the page imo by the same token.

    I just prefer each game tested at maybe 3 resolutions and those printed as bar graphs rather than the way AT has gone to the line graphs. I know they claim the latter provide more information, but I just think they aren't easy to read enough. And there's really no use for them, they're already printing one bar graph and the second line graph, so what, they're saving one graph per page? big deal.

    AT has a lot of good points no doubt, their bar graphs are the boldest and easiest to read bar none. It's amazing how many sites print a bar graph with the cards represented by 14 subtly different shades of the same color and expect you to read it. AT also dont typically clutter up the graphs with 40,000 different cards and all manner of annoying CF/SLI/3way SLI/kitchen sink crap either ( I believe they seperated multigpu in the 4800 review) like some sites. OTOH some AT reviews dont contain enough benched cards imo..
  • bill3 - Wednesday, June 25, 2008 - link

    But one thing I really find handy is the +/- percent comparison to competitors charts you see in some reviews. I notice Tom's is one site that sometimes does this lately. I really like that.
  • anonymous x - Tuesday, June 24, 2008 - link

    well, the only game i play from that list is crysis, and the 9800 GTX outperforms the ati... well, I guess i'll have to make the plunge to ati now, my 7950 GT can't play any game now at max settings
  • msgclb - Tuesday, June 24, 2008 - link

    The amazing thing I noticed is that the 8800 GT SLI is #2 to the 9800 GX2 in most games and falling to #3 a couple of times when the GTX 280 happens to break into the top 2 positions. It looks like if you own the GTX 280 you need to play Enemy Territory where it's #1 except at 1680x1050 and also a couple of other games where it is in the #1 position at 2560x1600.

    The question that I would like answered is will any of these new cards scale the way the single 8800 GT does going to 8800 GT SLI? The more I look at these and other benchmarks the more I'm inclined to stay with my 8800 GT SLI.

    Maybe it's time to jump ship to the 4870 CF!
  • cmdrdredd - Tuesday, June 24, 2008 - link

    How come in the crysis graph the 9800 GX2 gets ~48fps at 1600x1200

    and then further down at 1280x1024 none of the listed cards are near that speed and it's a lower resolution.
  • marone - Tuesday, June 24, 2008 - link

    ATI to Nvidia: Im at ur base, ste@ling your customers
  • Final Destination II - Tuesday, June 24, 2008 - link

    Last week I wanted to settle for a 9600GT.

    Scrap that!
    I won't go away with anything else but a HD4850 + better cooler!

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