NVIDIA GeForce 9800GTX 512MB

Looking over these results, in a number of cases the GeForce 9800GTX hadn't performed significantly different from the lower-priced GeForce 9600GT. We were surprised by this smaller delta compared to published performance figures on Windows; however, there may be a few reasons -- or a combination of -- for this disparity. Many of the available Linux-native graphics tests can be CPU limited, as we've seen from past NVIDIA driver releases there has been some performance issues with the GeForce 8/9 series (though most of those has been addressed), or another bottleneck. We are repeating these tests done on an octal-core system instead on a higher-clocked dual-core system and if the results do end up being different we will publish them.

What is clear, however, is that in most benchmarks the NVIDIA GeForce 9800GTX was noticeably faster than the ATI Radeon HD 3870. The Radeon HD 3870 sells for about $180 USD and up until a week ago, the GeForce 9800GTX has sold for about $260 USD. However, with the competition presented by the ATI Radeon HD 4850 and the resulting introduction of the GeForce 9800GTX+, this has resulted in the GeForce 9800GTX now being a sub-$200 part. The EVGA e-GeForce 9800GTX 512MB has started to sell for about $190 USD, which is just a few dollars more than the Radeon HD 3870 but offers significantly better performance. The main test where the Radeon HD 3870 had come out ahead was Enemy Territory: Quake Wars.

Aside from the quantitative performance, there are several other key differences between the NVIDIA GeForce 9800GTX and the competition that's presented by ATI's Radeon HD 3870 and now the Radeon HD 4850/4870. The Radeon HD series has the huge advantage of being much more open-source friendly than the GeForce series. AMD stands behind their complete Radeon family with reliable open-source support through the xf86-video-ati and xf86-video-radeonhd drivers as well as public NDA-free specifications for their products. The open-source support on the ATI side continues to improve almost each week. NVIDIA's only open-source support comes by way of an obfuscated 2D-only driver (xf86-video-nv) and the reverse-engineered Nouveau driver is far from being in a stable state for the GeForce 9800GTX.

Further differentiating the graphics cards and brands are several other features. The NVIDIA GeForce 9800GTX supports Hybrid Power Technology for shutting-down the G92 core when running a system with a NVIDIA IGP (such as the GeForce 8200) and running non graphically-intensive applications. However, Hybrid Power Technology isn't supported under Linux and at this time NVIDIA has no plans on introducing the support either. The 9800GTX is also limited to a single power-state within PowerMizer. On the ATI side, their latest desktop cards fully support PowerPlay technology and the Catalyst 8.6 driver had introduced support to utilize clock-gating.

One of the other factors to consider between the different graphics cards is the video playback support. Both NVIDIA and ATI support X-Video, which is common for being supported amongst Linux media applications. XvMC allows for hardware-accelerated MPEG-2 video playback, but that support was dropped starting with the GeForce 8 series. AMD hasn't publicly stated any improvements they have planned for video playback on Linux, so potentially they could be introducing a new solution with a future driver release. With Catalyst 8.6 they had introduced support for UYVY and YUV2 formats.

If one GeForce 9800GTX isn't enough to satisfy you, this graphics card supports up to three-card SLI, and this multi-GPU technology is supported under Linux. On the ATI side, users are currently limited to a single GPU but there we have confirmed CrossFire is coming to Linux.

All in all, the NVIDIA GeForce 9800GTX is one high-performance graphics card that's now available for under $200 USD. It lacks open-source support, but it has a competitive Linux edge. In addition, NVIDIA does product a proprietary driver for FreeBSD and Solaris to appease those customers. On Windows the Radeon HD 4850 has been able to outperform the GeForce 9800GTX, which had led to the immediate price-cut on these graphics cards and the introduction of the GeForce 9800GTX+. The NVIDIA 9800GTX+ sells for just $20~30 USD more than the vanilla 9800GTX and with slightly higher clock frequencies.

For reviews on the NVIDIA GeForce 9800GTX, Radeon HD 3870, and other graphics cards, visit the collective product information/review site TestFreaks.com.