NVIDIA Prepares to Launch 9800 GTX+ Next Month

If there is one thing NVIDIA’s great at, it’s making the competition feel the heat. Even though they are offering the best top-end cards right now, and have been since… hmm, the 6-series, the last thing they want to do is allow AMD to take the lead, in anything. We already know that AMD makes some incredible mid-range cards, and that’s what seems to scare NVIDIA, especially with the upcoming HD 4850 card launch.

From early reports, the HD 4850 out-performs the 9800 GTX from NVIDIA, a card that up until the GTX 280 was the fastest single-GPU card on the planet. But it gets better. The HD 4850 isn’t only faster, but it’s supposed to be priced around the $200 mark (HD 4870 at ~$279). Well, at that price, it would be $70 cheaper on average, over the 9800 GTX. So what’s NVIDIA to do? Drop prices? No, in typical NVIDIA fashion, they’ll again release another card that should not see the light of day.

Ryan at PC Perspective just received a new NVIDIA card, labeled the 9800 GTX+, to benchmark to his hearts content. 9800 GTX+? I’m all for new GPUs when they are warranted, but other than a small die shrink and clock bump, this is essentially a pre-overclocked 9800 GTX. What’s the point? Who knows, but we will once the card is released next month and can have a gander at its pricing.

Compared to the current generation GeForce 9800 GTX that runs at 675 MHz core, 1688 MHz shader and 1100 MHz memory clocks, the new 9800 GTX+ is a considerable bump in speed. What makes this all possible? The 9800 GTX+ is the 55nm refresh of G92 – all current 9800-series cards are built on 65nm technology.

Source: PC Perspective