A lot has happened over the past month in the world of 3D gaming graphics. NVIDIA launched the GeForce GTX 280 and GTX 260, ATI introduced us to the Radeon HD 4870 and HD 4850, and NVIDIA tried to rain on the Radeon HD 4800 series parade by dropping the 55nm GeForce 9800 GTX+ version. If that weren't enough, we've already seen price drops on the GeForce GTX 280 and GTX 260 as well. The latest fight for your pixel pushing dollars is shaping up to be quite a battle, and it's just getting started. Although the latest and greatest graphics cards are always a hot topic, we are going to focus on one of the established predecessors, namely a GeForce 9800 GTX in this piece. - HotHardware

ASUS Extreme N9800 GTX TOP Edition Board Review

Our sample comes from ASUS in the form of the Extreme N9800 GTX TOP edition. If you are a regular reader, then you are probably already aware that TOP is ASUS's designation to indicate that the card comes factory overclocked. In this case, the Extreme N9800 GTX TOP version is overclocked to 755MHz for the core, 2350MHz for the memory and 1840MHz for the shader clock. And an interesting note is that this card is actually faster than the upcoming GeForce 9800 GTX+ that we mentioned above, but the Extreme N9800 GTX TOP is of course not a 55nm part like the GeForce 9800 GTX+ graphics card.

The Extreme N9800 GTX TOP edition looks like most other GeForce 9800 GTX cards that you have seen, because it follows NVIDIA's reference design almost to the letter. The only deviations from the reference design are the sticker on the cooler and the color of the PCB, which is black. With this size comes a lot of graphics power, and that graphics power requires quite a bit of electrical power. That is why you see two 6-pin PCI Express power connectors on the TOP edition. Although, in relation to the current cream of the crop, the GeForce 9800 GTX requires much less power and coming with 3-way SLI technology.

Thanks to its factory overclock, the Extreme N9800 GTX TOP outperformed a stock GeForce 9800 GTX across the board and compared favorably with our reference systems. There are times when the reference GeForce 8800 GTX can beat out the reference GeForce 9800 GTX, but the TOP's faster clock speeds give it an edge most of the time. If performance is your bag and you're in the market for a relatively affordable GPU from NVIDIA, then you should definitely lean towards an overclocked version of the GeForce 9800 GTX, like the Extreme N9800 GTX TOP edition, in order to make sure it outperforms its predecessor.

Those of you expecting that the GeForce 9800 GTX would smack the GeForce 8800 GTX around are no doubt disappointed, but that's not really what the GeForce 9800 GTX launch was about. The big news with the GeForce 9800 GTX, besides the GPU's manufacturing process being moved from 90nm to 65nm, was that you'd get GeForce 8800 GTX performance at a much lower price. In addition to the better price, you also get PureVideo HD and HybridPower support, and a quiter, cooling running card. If you already have an GeForce 8800 GTX, then it's hard to recommend the new GTX to you, unless you want these new features.

Otherwise, we wouldn't really hesitate to recommend that you take a look at the Extreme N9800 GTX TOP if you can find it for no more than $230. With the GeForce GTX 260 scraping $300, we'd be reluctant to spend more than that on any GeForce 9800 GTX. If the Extreme N9800 GTX TOP is hard to find, as has been the case for some ASUS made graphics cards lately, then be patient and hope that ASUS releases an Extreme N9800 GTX+ TOP edition, or consider one of AMD's new Radeon HD 4800 series cards.