When we looked at the GeForce 9800 GTX+ for the first time the other week, the ASUS TOP version did impress us to a degree. As mentioned in our article, the GeForce 9800 GTX+ is pretty much an overclocked GeForce 9800 GTX, while an overclocked GTX+ is just an extremely overclocked GeForce 9800 GTX card. The thing is though, ultimately at the price point we had and the performance we got, it does offer some very good performance in its price bracket. There's no denying that people aren't getting too excited about it. It feels last gen now, it's similar to AMD dropping the price of the Radeon HD 3870 through the floor, it represents some great value but no one really cares about it at the moment. - TweakTown

XFX GeForce 9800 GTX+ Graphics Card Style Review

While XFX has overclocked the card, there doesn't seem to be any extra naming for the card like we've seen in the past. For example, the GeForce 9800 GTX+ XXX edition or something similar. We have to say, when we first saw the press release for the card, the box really stood out and looks fantastic. The middle of the box has a turbo like picture which has been all pimped out with a purple and black theme. Across the top we have the logo along with the model. Across the bottom of the box we again have the model along with the NVIDIA logo. Above that we have features, logos and also that the core comes in at 765MHz.

If you didn't know better, you could think this is the stock speed. Turning the box over, we have a bit of a blurb on the card. Below that we have some of the key features and to the left of that we have a larger explanation on what some of the features are. Pulling the card out of the box you see the same theme that was going on with the front of the package. We have the turbo like device again on the front with a purple and black colour scheme going on. We also have the brand and model on the front of the card and the XFX logo on the fan. Like most GeForce 9800 GTX+ cards at the moment, the card uses the reference cooler.

Looking around the card, we see everything a standard GeForce 9800 GTX would have. Towards the back of the card we have two 6-pin PCI Express connectors whilst moving across the top gives us two SLI connectors, giving us the ability to have up to three cards in a 3-way SLI configuration. As mentioned, the card is overclocked out of the box. Although, it's worth noting that only the core has been increased from the stock 738MHz to 765MHz. The shader and memory both remain at their stock clocks of 1836MHz and 2200MHz respectively. This is a big strange though for XFX to come only partly overclocked from factory.

When pulling the XFX GeForce 9800 GTX+ video card out of the box and seeing the core speed displayed on the front, we weren't 100% sure if it was stock or not. Just double checking though, we quickly realized that it was overclocked. It was disappointing to see that XFX didn't make a bigger deal about the fact that it was overclocked, even though the shader and memory speeds remained the same. With the memory and shader still running at stock speeds, we could see that the older GeForce 9800 GTX in a highly overclocked form could continue to beat the overclocked core of the GeForce 9800 GTX+ on offer from XFX really.

And for the most part you would probably be better off buying a second hand overclocked GeForce 9800 GTX off someone who has upgraded to a GeForce GTX 260 or GTX 280 and in the process saving some dollars. It's not to say the XFX GeForce 9800 GTX+ version isn't a good card though. It's really only a step up from the GeForce 9800 GT, which are exact replicas of previous generation cards. Unless you were going to purchase an extremely overclocked GeForce 9800 GTX+, we would opt for a second hand GeForce 9800 GTX like we just mentioned. And in the end we would have liked to see even higher clocks.