Like many gamers, we anticipated a heated video card war would take place this past year between NVIDIA and AMD. But instead of a knock-down, drag out fight between two heavyweight contenders, we instead witnessed NVIDIA dancing around the ring with its GeForce 8800 series GPU's while the company formerly known as ATI nary made an attempt at the performance crown. In recent months AMD has finally responded with its Radeon HD 3870, and while it still doesn't manage to regain the lead, it did prompt NVIDIA to release a new series in its lineup. While NVIDIA opted for a new naming scheme, the GeForce 9800 GTX retains the same G92 core as on its latest GeForce 8800 cards. - HardwareLogic

ASUS Extreme N9800 GTX 512MB Video Card Review

From a technical standpoint, the GeForce 9800 GTX is not much more than a higher clocked second run GeForce 8800 GTS where the first run batches were based around the G80 core. And to be fair, NVIDIA could have went with a new naming scheme when they refreshed their GeForce 8800 lineup with the G92 core, but because they didn't, they've opened themselves up to scrutiny by merely upping the core and memory clock speeds and calling it a GeForce 9800, seemingly indicating an architectural change. One of the ways manufacturers can separate their products from the competition is through the bundle.

ASUS adds an attractive graphic to the large dual slot heatsink, and it almost seems a shame that this lady warrior will spend her remaining days upside down inside a chassis. On the top of the card sit two notched SLI connectors, meaning you can run the GeForce 9800 GTX as part of a 3-Way SLI setup. Of course, a threesome in this sense sounds a lot sexier than it really is, and you'll need one monster of a setup and power supply to justify that amount of graphical horsepower. You will need not one, but two 6-pin power connectors to run the GeForce 9800 GTX, and ASUS sticks these on the top of the graphics card.

Underneath the new naming scheme sits a familiar core architecture we call the G92, and it smells just as sweet now as it did in the GeForce 8800 GTS trim. This time around, higher clock speeds translate into higher performance across the board, giving NVIDIA yet another capable GPU in what's fast becoming a dominant landscape for the company. And for you balls to the wall performance buffs, you can slap three GeForce 9800 GTX video cards into a compatible motherboard for a 3-Way SLI nirvana. Combined with the capable and very quiet cooling solution, there's a lot to like with some excellent performance as result.

Still, we can't help but feel somewhat disappointed with this latest release. Don't get us wrong, we still adore the G92 architecture, but we had hoped for a little more out of a brand new series from NVIDIA. We've already seen what the G92 can do, but what it can't do is process DirectX 10.1 instructions, nor can it leave AMD in the dust, or even its own previous cards based on the same core. Ultimately, the GeForce 9800 GTX serves as a stop-gap before NVIDIA unveils its true next-gen GPU, the GT200. So who should run out the door and purchase one of these GeForce 9800 GTX graphics cards?

Anyone looking for the fastest G92 video card on the market and willing to sacrifice a bit of bang for buck to get there. The ASUS Extreme N9800 GTX card tore through our benchmarks with a plomb, and did so while offering capable overclocking and fan control utilities. Just don't expect to blow existing G92 based cards out of the water.