9800 GTX+, a trip down memory lane

[nathanddrews]

PCIe lane, that is. I wish he had tested more games, but it's neat to see it can still provide playable experiences:

 

[Borealis7]

on the lowest settings. playable? yes. enjoyable? No.
and again, these test only show how much Consoles have held us back in terms of graphics.

 

[nathanddrews]

on the lowest settings. playable? yes. enjoyable? No.

That's entirely subjective, of course. Graphics fidelity <> enjoyment. I would argue that playing Dota2 @ 100fps and Rocket League @ 60fps at 1080p is plenty of fun, even if it is on low presets. Still better than Intel IGP in many instances. Point being, if you still have this GPU kicking around and know someone that wants to play F2P games and has no money, this could be a nice upgrade for them.

 

[Spjut]

Good find! I've always thought it's a pity most sites don't care about testing the minimum requirements.

Now hoping he does one for the HD 4850 or 4870!

 

[Headfoot]

G92 is an absolutely legendary GPU. Maybe the best GPU ever designed.

 

[SlowSpyder]

Pawn shop near me has a 9800GTX (don't think it was GTX+) for sale for $25. I almost picked it up just to pop it in my PC and have some fun.

 

[SPBHM]

this card (same specs) was quickly renamed to GTS 250...
basically G92 with this configuration (fully enabled) started as 8800GTS 512MB, went to 9800GTX, GTX+ and GTS 250...
but it was a pretty good card, also I think it's important to consider that anything at 1080P is pushing it, when it was new 1280x1024 was still the main res, and 1680x1050 was the high end gaming res.
also the 4850 aged better, the Nvidia cards at the time (even GTX 285) supported DX10, but the ATIs supported DX10.1, for this reason a 4850 can run Overwatch fairly well, while the GTS 250/9800GTX+ can't run it.

 

[Face2Face]

Still have my GTS 250 1GB. Runs great. I should pop in my system and blow your minds... I've owned so many G92 cards, it's hard for me to remember, but the GTS 250 1GB was the fastest variant (55nm G92b)

 

[Spjut]

this card (same specs) was quickly renamed to GTS 250...
basically G92 with this configuration (fully enabled) started as 8800GTS 512MB, went to 9800GTX, GTX+ and GTS 250...
but it was a pretty good card, also I think it's important to consider that anything at 1080P is pushing it, when it was new 1280x1024 was still the main res, and 1680x1050 was the high end gaming res.
also the 4850 aged better, the Nvidia cards at the time (even GTX 285) supported DX10, but the ATIs supported DX10.1, for this reason a 4850 can run Overwatch fairly well, while the GTS 250/9800GTX+ can't run it.

I wouldn't say the HD 4850 definitely aged better. AMD stopped regular support already in 2012 and Legacy support in 2013. Battlefield Hardline for example can be run on a GTX 260, but refuses to run on HD 4800 series because it says the driver is too old.

PCgameshardware.de actually had the 9800 GTX 512MB and HD 4870 1GB in their test for GTA V. Click on the Phenom II X4 940 tab. 9800 GTX is very close to HD 4870.
"Niedrig" means low and "mittel" is medium.
http://www.pcgameshardware.de/GTA-5...95/Specials/Systemanforderungen-Test-1156263/

 

[SPBHM]

I wouldn't say the HD 4850 definitely aged better. AMD stopped regular support already in 2012 and Legacy support in 2013. Battlefield Hardline for example can be run on a GTX 260, but refuses to run on HD 4800 series because it says the driver is too old.

PCgameshardware.de actually had the 9800 GTX 512MB and HD 4870 1GB in their test for GTA V. Click on the Phenom II X4 940 tab. 9800 GTX is very close to HD 4870.
"Niedrig" means low and "mittel" is medium.
http://www.pcgameshardware.de/GTA-5...95/Specials/Systemanforderungen-Test-1156263/

that's a good point, AMD indeed dropped support to soon and it caused lots of problems, even a 6970 suffers with that in newer Battlefield and other games (with bugs that don't exist on old Geforces) still Overwatch (one of the main games from 2016) is definitely a win for ATI longevity due to that 10.1 support
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UmQpavpvjiY

not even the 285 can run it, (the 40nm pre-Fermi Nvidia cards can, like the GT 240, but they perform very poorly)

 

[Insomniator]

I was actually going to make a joke saying 'but the 4850 aged better!', but I guess I underestimated this boards ability to argue about meaningless bs.

 

[Ichinisan]

G92 was amazing.

My old 9800 GT EE ("Energy Efficient") 2GB [1GB] was only ~$47 on clearance at Best Buy. It required no power connector. Modern Warfare 2 with max settings at 1920x1200 looked liquid smooth.

It was just a die-shrunk G92.

 

[SPBHM]

G92 was amazing.

My old 9800 GT EE ("Energy Efficient") 2GB was only ~$47 on clearance at Best Buy. It required no power connector. Modern Warfare 2 with max settings at 1920x1200 looked liquid smooth.

It was just a die-shrunk G92.

as far as I can remember the G92-g94 cards without the connector also had reduced clocks (like from 650 to 600... not a huge deal), I think they were called "Eco"

I think almost but not all the 9800GTs used the 55nm version of G92

but I had no idea they made 2GB versions, kind of funny that they had 256MB and 2GB models with the same GPU.

 

[Ichinisan]

as far as I can remember the G92-g94 cards without the connector also had reduced clocks (like from 650 to 600... not a huge deal), I think they were called "Eco"

I think almost but not all the 9800GTs used the 55nm version of G92

but I had no idea they made 2GB versions, kind of funny that they had 256MB and 2GB models with the same GPU.

Yeah. The 2GB [1GB] model was from PNY. The Best Buy clearance was an absolute steal. There were at least 4 different "clearance" prices at various stores. Some stores charged over $140 while others only charged $47.

 

[Spjut]

that's a good point, AMD indeed dropped support to soon and it caused lots of problems, even a 6970 suffers with that in newer Battlefield and other games (with bugs that don't exist on old Geforces) still Overwatch (one of the main games from 2016) is definitely a win for ATI longevity due to that 10.1 support
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UmQpavpvjiY

not even the 285 can run it, (the 40nm pre-Fermi Nvidia cards can, like the GT 240, but they perform very poorly)

I wonder if the DX11 patches for Diablo 3 and Heroes of the Storm support feature level 10/10_1 as well. I know personally that a Phenom II X4 limited performance in those games (with HD 4870 512MB).

 

[crisium]

as far as I can remember the G92-g94 cards without the connector also had reduced clocks (like from 650 to 600... not a huge deal), I think they were called "Eco"

I think almost but not all the 9800GTs used the 55nm version of G92

but I had no idea they made 2GB versions, kind of funny that they had 256MB and 2GB models with the same GPU.

Whoa, I never knew of a 2GB 9800GT either. I find that fascinating. 4 memory amounts: 256MB (8800 GT) 512MB, 1GB, and 2GB is unprecedented for consumer cards. There are professional Hawaii cards with 32GB and 16GB, so throw in 8GB and 4GB and that's the only other chip to have as many sizes that I know of. Radeon 4870, Radeon 7850/265/370, and GTX 750 Ti are also recent rare examples of 3 different memory sizes available, but 4 is crazy.

 

[Ichinisan]

Guys, I misremembered the capacity of mine! It was only 1GB.

I recall it was double what most 9800GT "EE" cards offered, I just got mixed-up about the standard capacity.

/BrianWilliams

 

[SPBHM]

oh well, that makes sense
still G92 also had the 8800GS which had a 384 and 768MB version, so we have G92 cards with 256, 384, 512, 768 and 1024MB of memory, still impressive.

 

[Smoblikat]

I owned one. It was black and green I think, what brand was that?

Bonus points if you remember the XFX and GTX 4XX scandal.

Whoa, I never knew of a 2GB 9800GT either. I find that fascinating. 4 memory amounts: 256MB (8800 GT) 512MB, 1GB, and 2GB is unprecedented for consumer cards. There are professional Hawaii cards with 32GB and 16GB, so throw in 8GB and 4GB and that's the only other chip to have as many sizes that I know of. Radeon 4870, Radeon 7850/265/370, and GTX 750 Ti are also recent rare examples of 3 different memory sizes available, but 4 is crazy.

The GTX 460 had a 768, 1gb, and 2gb versions. The 768mb one had a 192-bit bus IIRC.