As you all have seen, XFX has become a household name in the PC industry and they have taken major strides to become a worldwide player in the graphics card and motherboard game. They have market shares just about everywhere and have begun to really expand their sales across the globe. It seems as if the Alpha Dog series will be now become the second fastest of their card line as the new Black Edition becomes the top dog of the XFX lineup. We are not sure exactly how many of the different chipsets will meet the criteria to make the Black Edition, but we currently know that the GeForce 9800 GX2 and GTX are two chipsets we will see right now, that can make it. - Gamepyre

XFX GeForce 9800 GTX 512MB Black Version Preview

The XFX GeForce 9800 GTX Black Edition card has a clock speed of 760MHz, which is a full 85MHz overclock of the standard GeForce 9800 GTX clock speed of 675MHz, and a moderate 40MHz overclock of the XXX edition. The shader clock of 1900MHz compares quite favorably with the shader clock of 1698MHz of the standard GTX, and 1850MHz of the XXX edition from XFX. The memory clock on the GeForce 9800 GTX Black Edition is 2.28GHz. The standard GeForce 9800 GTX memory speed is 2.2GHz, while the XXX edition card has a lower 2.2GHz memory clock speed. The memory interface remain still at 256-bit.

XFX's card is rather much like the NVIDIA reference card in terms of design with only a sticker change to the card cooler, with otherwise identical looking. The heatsink features the XFX logo, the GeForce 9800 GTX logo and Black Edition over the front of the card. The memory is covered by the heatsink of the video card, but it should be the same memory as used on other GeForce 9800 GTX cards as it is only slightly overclocked from the reference memory speed. Two 6-pin power connectors are required to be hooked up in order to run this video card. NVIDIA chose to require two connectors for their high-end graphics cards.

Although not the fastest card out there in the graphics world the XFX Black Edition is one serious card for the gaming crowd as it does perform above the standard variety of GeForce 9800 GTX cards. The Black Edition plays games very well and although the card is overclocked right out of the box it does not generate massive amounts of heat and does not crash due to overheating. Overclocking beyond the shipped clocked speed showed okay stability, but it's fairly well pushed as is and additional overclocking would need a better cooling solution. So we would have liked to see some more creativity in that area.

The bundle and support are very well with the Black Edition of the GeForce 9800 GTX, it comes with Call of Duty 4, which is one of the hottest PC gaming titles available at this moment making the card a more attractive buy. Support and warranty options are well taken care of by XFX as they take very good care of their customers in the after purchase environment and quick RMA return times. Overall this card is a solid piece of equipment that excels in the higher widescreen resolutions with moderate anti-aliasing. Not quite a gamers gold card, but definitely a winner.