The GeForce 9800 GX2 is the first complete high-end card, at least that's how NVIDIA describes it in its own words. Let's not look back at all the shortcomings of the GeForce 8800 Ultra, but take a peak at what the GeForce 9800 GX2 has to offer. This is the fastest graphics card ever made, but in fact it's two graphics cards stapled together. NVIDIA will probably say that the GeForce 9800 GX2 combines the power of two GeForce 9800 GPU's with a grand total of 256 stream processors and an earth shuddering 1GB frame buffer. Obviously, the card is a dual slot design and it looks sexy, but also elegant, as it is encased in an all metal body which is holding the dual-PCB cgraphics card together. - FudZilla

Gainward BLISS 9800 GX2 1GB Edition Board Review

The combined power of two GPU's is not the only good thing about this card. PureVideo HD technology, first seen on the G92 based cards, is now an integral part of the package and that's one of the reasons NVIDIA calls its new flagship a complete solution, as it gets you top notch performance as well as multimedia capabilities. The complete package looks robust and sturdy. The fan is inside the metal case and there's no way you can damage it, or any other part of the card, for that matter. Its GPU duet works, thanks to new SLI technology. The driver manages them by using 4-way alternate frame rendering and scaling is easy.

ATI managed to do pretty much the same thing with its Radeon HD 3870 X2 card, but it used just one PCB. NVIDIA took another approach and it's still using two PCB's. You can see how the GPU's are mounted, each on its own PCB facing the other. This allowed the engineers to squeeze the cooler in between, sandwiched between the two PCB's. The fan scoops up cold air through the sides and the rear of the card and forces it through the card. Most of the hot air exits the card on top and if you haven't got some serious airflow in the your chassis, this might be an issue though overheating protection is foreseen.

The 65nm GPU's have 1508 million transistors in total, if we combine them. They are clocked at 600MHz with a shader clock of 1500MHz and these numbers are similar to those we already saw on the GeForce 8800 GT cards. It has a total of 256 stream processors. The memory is clocked slightly higher than on previously seen G92 cards. The GeForce 9800 GX2 uses memory clocked at 2000MHz, slightly more than the 1800MHz and 1940MHz seen on the GeForce 8800 GT and GTS, respectively. The memory bus is 256-bit and the card packs two times 512MB of GDDR3 memory. Also a single SLI connection is available.

Even at reference clocks the Gainward BLISS 9800 GX2 manages to drastically outperform Radeon HD 3870 X2 cards. It needs higher resolutions to show what it's capable off, but then again, you won't spend €550 to play at the standard resolutions. This card is at home at high resolutions and high settings and in these circumstances it leaves the Radeon HD 3870 X2 behind in a cloud of dust. The GeForce 8800 GTX and Ultra can enjoy their retirement days knowing that the GeForce 9800 GX2 offspring is more than capable of taking care of family business. And certainly is now top of the NVIDIA based graphics card range.

So it is much faster than its predecessors and even at these prices it's a good investment if you've got a screen capable of handling high resolutions. It's much faster than the Radeon HD 3870 X2, but at the same time it is much faster in many scenarios. If you want the fastest card on the planet, we can easily recommend it. Only the overclocked GeForce 9800 GX2 cards will be faster.