XFX 9800 GTX+

There are more graphics cards on the market at present than we have ever seen. Both Nvidia and ATI have not just trashed their old series cards, they have in fact just started marketing them as a more of a budget line. For ATI this means that while the HD4xxx series is in full swing the HD3xxx series then gives consumers a cheaper alternative.

Nvidia doesn't have it easier, in fact due to the success of the 8 series consumers are more reluctant than ever to upgrade to a newer slice of silicon cooked up by the jolly green giant. Nvidia has been playing around with the consumer of late and has gotten into the habit of relaunching GPU's that have been tweaked on the silicon level, we are of course talking about the 8800GTS 512MB and the 9800GTX+. So why did Nvidia rehash the 9800GTX+. Simply put they need a card to combat the very popular ATI HD4850 both in price and performance, and truth be told it's a ploy that just might work. Comparing the results of the HD4850 in September and the results of the 9800GTX+ in the same tests and you can see that the 9800GTX+, while a bit more expensive, wins hands down. At just under $300 you cannot ask for more, the performance is good and while the card is much larger than the HD4850 it won't force you to buy another case just to have it fit.

The biggest question to ask is whether buying a 9800GTX+ is better than buying a 9800GTX. Well the 55nm process of the GTX+ will help it run a little cooler but it will also allow it to achieve higher overclocks, and ultimately at this price level where's the harm in spending a couple of hundred extra to get a slightly faster, cooler, and more overdockable card? The frame rates are hardly what we would call unplayable and while Crysis with 4xAA wasn't mind blowing it must be kept in mind that very few cards on Crysis at high settings have anything to boast about. Bearing in mind that Nvidia have given the 9 series physics support, if you do go for SLI you will then benefit from the added physics. In short that means for under $300 you get decent graphics and physics, not bad at all especially since the GTX2 series are priced beyond madness.

The added HDMI support gets a thumbs up and will mean that your GPU can be used once playtime is over and you want to watch a movie or two on an HDTV. All in all, you would have to be a pretty die hard AMD/ATI fanboy to warrant not spending the little extra for the possible future benefit of physics, and expect these cards to drop in price as time goes by.