EVGA 9800GX2 Unboxing and Benchmarks

[AuDioFreaK39]

My EVGA 9800GX2 just arrived on my doorstep this morning. Here is a little walkthrough of the unboxing routine as well as some pictures of it in my rig.

10:22AM - UPS delivery to front doorstep.
http://img170.imageshack.us/img170/9610/95dd809cfe0.jpg

3:05PM - Unboxing begins.
http://i57.photobucket.com/albums/g204/AuDioFreaK39/EVGA%209800GX2%20Unboxing/5490f176.jpg

The back of the packaging is very similar to EVGA's previous box-art designs. The "24/7 Tech Support" logo is the only new image I can notice.
http://i57.photobucket.com/albums/g204/AuDioFreaK39/EVGA%209800GX2%20Unboxing/8eafd943.jpg

The card was placed in a black foam container rather than the typical plastic mold used on previously produced models.
http://i57.photobucket.com/albums/g204/AuDioFreaK39/EVGA%209800GX2%20Unboxing/25fae3e4.jpg

Included in the package underneath the foam containing the card was a large white box. The only items inside of it however were two typical DVI-to-VGA adapters and an SPDIF connector (which is used to connect a discrete sound card to the 9800GX2 to allow for audio passthrough via HDMI, in case any of you were wondering :))
http://i57.photobucket.com/albums/g204/AuDioFreaK39/EVGA%209800GX2%20Unboxing/69b019dd.jpg

Here is a close-up of the connectors on the SPDIF cable for those interested.
http://i57.photobucket.com/albums/g204/AuDioFreaK39/EVGA%209800GX2%20Unboxing/72b28b89.jpg

And here you have it, the EVGA 9800GX2 01G-P3-N891-AR in all its sexyness :) The fan art was coated with clear removable plastic protection as usual, however there seems to be a problem with this (next picture)
http://i57.photobucket.com/albums/g204/AuDioFreaK39/EVGA%209800GX2%20Unboxing/630eaf21.jpg

So what the hell happened here? EVGA decided to place the Warranty Void if Removed sticker on the removable plastic protection! Quite ironic in my opinion.
http://i57.photobucket.com/albums/g204/AuDioFreaK39/EVGA%209800GX2%20Unboxing/4abfec50.jpg

My solution? Scotch tape :) I placed the sticker on the very bottom of the card with all the others so that its out of sight.
http://img170.imageshack.us/img170/4245/2207fbffek6.jpg

The SLi bridge connector now features a removable plastic cover for protection against damage.
http://i57.photobucket.com/albums/g204/AuDioFreaK39/EVGA%209800GX2%20Unboxing/a9b199da.jpg

http://i57.photobucket.com/albums/g204/AuDioFreaK39/EVGA%209800GX2%20Unboxing/d74c9c4d.jpg

EVGA decided to "Step-Up" their included stickers. The new design features a red Є and says "Powered by ЄVGA." A very aesthetic design in my opinion that I will be adding to my collection of stickers :)

http://i57.photobucket.com/albums/g204/AuDioFreaK39/EVGA%209800GX2%20Unboxing/d19756d9.jpg

Here is the rig it will be installed into. Note the absence of a rear 120mm panel. I'm going to be adding a new ESA-compliant water cooling system next month or so :)
http://i57.photobucket.com/albums/g204/AuDioFreaK39/EVGA%209800GX2%20Unboxing/abe936aa.jpg

Installed:
http://i57.photobucket.com/albums/g204/AuDioFreaK39/EVGA%209800GX2%20Unboxing/127fbfda.jpg

Quoted from [H]ard|OCP: "Another interesting thing about this video card, it lights up! This will be true for all GeForce 9800 GX2s; they have several LEDs placed throughout the video card for various purposes to indicate problems. The first ones you will notice are around the power connectors. If you have power properly plugged in the connectors will light up green. If you do not, they will light up red. There are also LEDs right inside the exhaust slights, 3 LEDs on both sides, that light up the back with glowing green light. Then there is another green and blue light right on the bracket itself, and when it is dark you can see the blue light shining through the top of the video card."

http://i57.photobucket.com/albums/g204/AuDioFreaK39/EVGA%209800GX2%20Unboxing/50a9700a.jpg

http://i57.photobucket.com/albums/g204/AuDioFreaK39/EVGA%209800GX2%20Unboxing/f4c4f50b.jpg

http://i57.photobucket.com/albums/g204/AuDioFreaK39/EVGA%209800GX2%20Unboxing/746f7f08.jpg

And finally, a complete setup with the 9800GX2 installed. Keep it \M/ETAL.

http://i57.photobucket.com/albums/g204/AuDioFreaK39/EVGA%209800GX2%20Unboxing/be7c3b21.jpg

*UPDATE* Initial Benchmark results
Here's my promise to all you guys: :)

http://i57.photobucket.com/albums/g204/AuDioFreaK39/Untitled-1.png
http://service.futuremark.com/resultComparison.action?compareResultId=6222382&compareResultType=14

18,518 ain't bad for an initial run right?

[darkorb]

Very nice dude. Looking forward

[Rattle]

sweet, man i want one of these, if it was $500 i would be all over it.

[Gl@re]

so what about benchmarks? lol

mine were supposed to be here today but the plane got grounded in Tennessee because of a storm...

[Fujimitsu]

Nice!

Need to get that upgrade over with, seeing a celeron w/ stock HSF paired with that card is a bit saddening :P:

[Waymon3X6]

Ahh, audiofreak from incrysis!

I see you got one of these monsters,

CRYSIS BENCHES PLEASE!!!

[AuDioFreaK39]

Here's just a quick preview of what's new in the Nvidia Control Panel while I run my benchies. I'm sure some of you have seen this before, but it gave me a good laugh to see it ask me this question on my own screen.

http://img221.imageshack.us/img221/5937/captureso0.png

Anyways *runs 3DMark*

[dinos22]

hahah as Beavis and Butthead would say

Bathe her and bring her to me :D:D:D:D::D:D

good luck man
loooooooooooooooooove the smell of fresh silicone even if it's not mine :ROTF:

[Tortel]

I really want to see what this looks like without its shiny stock heatsink

[AuDioFreaK39]

hahah as Beavis and Butthead would say

Bathe her and bring her to me :D:D:D:D::D:D

good luck man
loooooooooooooooooove the smell of fresh silicone even if it's not mine :ROTF:

Haha I know what you mean, especially when you're helping a friend build a rig with fresh new hardware and that sweet new smell of silicone. It makes you psychologically feel like you "own their rig" even though it's not yours. Don't worry, you can "share" ;)

[Sly Fox]

Looking forward to your benchmarks.

It's a nice card, just too pricey for my tastes.

[AuDioFreaK39]

update*

Ahh I'm seeming to have issues with these drivers or something. RivaTuner doesn't even detect my card anymore, and taking a screenshot of my desktop yields a weird artifacting problem like so:

http://i57.photobucket.com/albums/g204/AuDioFreaK39/5c3a1250.png

Any ideas?

[Waymon3X6]

uninstall those drivers and revert back to older ones...

What did you run 3dmark?

[AuDioFreaK39]

uninstall those drivers and revert back to older ones...

What did you run 3dmark?

I just realized that those are week-old drivers and I updated to ForceWare 174.53 immediately, but I'm still having the same issues. Taking a screenshot of my desktop still yields artifacting, and the 9800GX2 isn't even recognized in RivaTuner.

[speedfreak86]

Rivatuner 2.08?

[AuDioFreaK39]

Rivatuner 2.08?

Yessir.

[speedfreak86]

Give me a bit and I will get back to you. I have been playin exclusively in xp so far. I'll boot back and see what happens to me in Vista.

[Kryckter]

I get the same screens when trying to do screenshots, and pasting them in MSPaint....

[speedfreak86]

I get the same type of screenshots in vista too, not in xp. Rivatuner recognizes the card in both xp and vista, but in vista SLi shows being disabled in GPU-Z despite being activated in the Nvidia console. I am about to install SP1 to see if it changes anything.

[AuDioFreaK39]

Oh my God lol. A simple RivaTuner 2.08 reinstall and now it's working just fine, ugh..

benchmarking time!! :D :D

[Yukon Trooper]

http://i57.photobucket.com/albums/g204/AuDioFreaK39/5c3a1250.png
Haha, that made me crack up.

As I was scrolling down the page and looking at the pictures: "Nice, nice, nice, ohhh noes, shoulda bought a PS3 instead."

[AuDioFreaK39]

Haha, that made me crack up.

As I was scrolling down the page and looking at the pictures: "Nice, nice, nice, ohhh noes, shoulda bought a PS3 instead."

Lol, off topic, but I got my PS3 on launch day :) And yes, I went through the riot and the fights and I ended up buying 2 and selling one on eBay.

*UPDATE*

Lmao, okay here they are you guys, first results...and you guessed it, they suck! Thanks to my Celeron.

http://service.futuremark.com/compare?3dm06=5834016

[speedfreak86]

That only happens when the image is placed into paint. The screen never looks like that. But...update...GPU-Z still doesn't show SLi enabled. But come to think of it i think that there is a thread about it not showing it enabled when it is. So everything seems to be working okay. Maybe sometime early next week I'll run some benchmarks in Vista to check everything is working and enabled.

EDIT: Found it-->http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?p=2853541#post2853541 this gpu-z shows SLi enabled in vista.

[speedfreak86]

Lol, off topic, but I got my PS3 on launch day :) And yes, I went through the riot and the fights and I ended up buying 2 and selling one on eBay.

*UPDATE*

Lmao, okay here they are you guys, first results...and you guessed it, they suck! Thanks to my Celeron.

http://service.futuremark.com/compare?3dm06=5834016

Wow! That processor really kills the score...here was mine from the other thread: http://service.futuremark.com/resultComparison.action?compareResultId=5829846&compareResultType=14

Still having overclocking problems...here is mine overclocked to 730/1825/1100-->http://service.futuremark.com/resultComparison.action?compareResultId=5832387&compareResultType=14

As you can see, not much better than the first.

[AuDioFreaK39]

Wow! That processor really kills the score...here was mine from the other thread: http://service.futuremark.com/resultComparison.action?compareResultId=5829846&compareResultType=14

Still having overclocking problems...here is mine overclocked to 730/1825/1100-->http://service.futuremark.com/resultComparison.action?compareResultId=5832387&compareResultType=14

As you can see, not much better than the first.

Interesting to see that your SM 2.0 score took a drop when you overclocked the card. I'm guessing this is still a driver issue.

[boomstick68]

Looks like you guys have a $600 headache! But hey, it looks pretty installed!:rofl:

[speedfreak86]

600 dollar headache? Looks like I got exactly what I paid for. Overclocking is never a promise. I still got more than 5K in 3dmark06 over the 400 dollar card I used to have.

[Linchpin]

What are temps like at load with the fan set to 60-70%?

[Kryckter]

What are temps like at load with the fan set to 60-70%?

My load temps are around 65 - 70 full load.

This is @ 7000/1800/2200

Idle temps are around 45-50

All this with the fan set to 90%

[Linchpin]

Is it really noticeable over the noise from the case fans?

[Kryckter]

Is it really noticeable over the noise from the case fans?

Stock fan speed...No, not at all.

90% - 100%, yes. And that is over my 88CFM yate loons

[fornowagain]

Wow! That processor really kills the score...here was mine from the other thread: http://service.futuremark.com/resultComparison.action?compareResultId=5829846&compareResultType=14

Still having overclocking problems...here is mine overclocked to 730/1825/1100-->http://service.futuremark.com/resultComparison.action?compareResultId=5832387&compareResultType=14

As you can see, not much better than the first.

Have you tried the 173.67 drivers? The overclock 700+ issue seems to be common. Wonder if its the 174.53's or if the cards throttling.

[speedfreak86]

No, I didn't try any older drivers and won't have a chance to until next week as I will be out of town for the holiday. I will give it a shot sunday night and let you know. I did not notice the cards throttling though. I set the fan to 100% and it is pretty loud, but it blends right in with all the fans I already have going anyway.

[Delirious.]

Heads up. I purchase two of these and one was bad. It only ran on one gpu and the scores were terrible. Something like 12,000. I uninstalled and reinstalled the card. Same thing. I removed the card a second time and put the second card in and WOW. got over 18,000 at stock in vista. It eventually overclocked over 19,000.

I put the first card back in and the same thing. It was a bad card. I didn't change a thing between cards. two gpu showed up in the device manager and everything for the first card. Don't know what's up but mwave sent me a second card. I get it this afternoon.

I used driver 174.53

[Waymon3X6]

Wait, the card is fine if it gives some score - you must be bottlenecking it somehow.

The only thing I can think of at the moment is are both of your PCI-e slots set to 16x?

[Delirious.]

No, I made no changes between the cards. I seated the first card twice and it did nothing and the new card ran like a dream. No changes what so ever.

[ZippZopp]

can anyone with this new card help me out and tell me something. can the SLI functionality be disabled and enabled without resetting the system?

I need multiple monitors for graphics work that I do within Windows Vista x64, but I also game a good amount. i need to know if the SLI can be switched on and off without resetting. if a reset is required, it pretty much means I can't get this card

[ban916]

Nice to see you on here its bigbri916 from in crysis....

[Talonman]

Screen shot issue is a driver thing, and is being addressed by nVidia...

http://www.driverheaven.net/reviews.php?reviewid=538&pageid=27

[fornowagain]

174.60 fixes it.

http://img211.imageshack.us/img211/2905/770sk0.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

[Waymon3X6]

Holy Sh(i) t!!!

Very high please??!!?

[ZippZopp]

yeah, i'd like to see very high benchmarks at 1600x1200 or 1920x1280

[AuDioFreaK39]

Wow, I just noticed something particularly interesting about this card. According to GPU-Z 0.1.7, each internal silicon substrate is given its own separate BIOS number like so:

http://img138.imageshack.us/img138/2928/59605283yb6.png

Is this..normal?

[Gl@re]

if you turn aero off, screen shots will work fine. or at least they did for me.

[fornowagain]

Is this..normal?Seems so, mines the same.

[sonofander]

can anyone with this new card help me out and tell me something. can the SLI functionality be disabled and enabled without resetting the system?

I need multiple monitors for graphics work that I do within Windows Vista x64, but I also game a good amount. i need to know if the SLI can be switched on and off without resetting. if a reset is required, it pretty much means I can't get this card

no reboot required :D

screen goes black, comes back up and violla - dual monitors!

[ShArKo]

congratulation dude............do you have pictures with the GX2 naked???

I want to see the GX2 naked.......how much did you pay the card??

[Talonman]

Sweet setup... Looks like she's a runner! ;)

[AuDioFreaK39]

Sweet setup... Looks like she's a runner! ;)

Just curious, are you the TalonMan from the HardForum?

[Talonman]

One in the same! ;) Good or Bad is up for debate...

[safan80]

I have the same problem with my GX2 sticker. I hate it because it was already peeling off when I took it out of the box.

[AuDioFreaK39]

Here's my promise to all you guys: :)

http://i57.photobucket.com/albums/g204/AuDioFreaK39/Untitled-1.png
http://service.futuremark.com/resultComparison.action?compareResultId=6222382&compareResultType=14

18,518 ain't bad for an initial run right? Let me know what you think I can adjust. My goal is to pass 20k right now.

[Talonman]

I think for running your CPU at 3.6GHz, your numbers are right on the money!

I believe as Data would say, "your GX2 is functioning within normal parameters"... ;)

Good install. :up:

If you want 20K, your going to need close to 4.0GHz on your CPU I think...

[xMrBunglex]

your quad core should overclock higher if you want it to. 18.5K with a GX2 and an overclocked quad core seems a little disappointing to me though. i score over 19K with a pair of $200 g-cards and a dual core CPU.

[E.R]

your quad core should overclock higher if you want it to. 18.5K with a GX2 and an overclocked quad core seems a little disappointing to me though. i score over 19K with a pair of $200 g-cards and a dual core CPU.
ATI-card are known for beeing good in 3dmark unlike NV-card that performs better in reallife game than that "game".

[speedfreak86]

your quad core should overclock higher if you want it to. 18.5K with a GX2 and an overclocked quad core seems a little disappointing to me though. i score over 19K with a pair of $200 g-cards and a dual core CPU.

It is a bit disappointing to me also, but from what I read it seems as though the quad at 3.6 like I have is actually a bottleneck in the game tests... I don't quite understand, but overclocking my card yields less than 1000 points on the standard resolution 3dmark06. Run your cards at 1600 or 1900 though in 3dmark please and see what you get.(for real, i am curious.)

[E.R]

It is a bit disappointing to me also, but from what I read it seems as though the quad at 3.6 like I have is actually a bottleneck in the game tests... I don't quite understand, but overclocking my card yields less than 1000 points on the standard resolution 3dmark06. Run your cards at 1600 or 1900 though in 3dmark please and see what you get.(for real, i am curious.)

What does Crysis benchmark gives you at 1920x1080 and Very High X10 in Vista no AA? I got average of 27.83FPS in 64-bit mode on 740/2280 on the card and 4Ghz on cpu.
I only raised my score from 19750 or so up to 20191 in 06 by OC the card but i don´t care so mutch about that "game" as of real games like Crysis that demands power and does not affected by CPU OC as 3dmark are.

[Waymon3X6]

^You know that 32bit mode in Crysis yields better frames, at least it does for me. Runnin Vista ultimate x64

[E.R]

26.56 was my average FPS in 32-bit at same settings that gave over 27 in 64-bit mode.

[speedfreak86]

What does Crysis benchmark gives you at 1920x1080 and Very High X10 in Vista no AA? I got average of 27.83FPS in 64-bit mode on 740/2280 on the card and 4Ghz on cpu.
I only raised my score from 19750 or so up to 20191 in 06 by OC the card but i don´t care so mutch about that "game" as of real games like Crysis that demands power and does not affected by CPU OC as 3dmark are.

I can't run that resolution with the monitor I have. I'm only on 1680X1050. But, I don't think that I can run my card at clocks that high. I usually run a 675/2200. It gives me around 30-45fps though through crysis(not on the benchmark, just me looking at fraps) with the specs in my sig.

[zodiac]

Anyone wanna comment on their OC sweet spots with this card?
Also, has anyone dropped the SSC BIOS on their stock GX2 yet?
I'm curious about the voltage settings in the SSC BIOS (if there is a change), and will the SSC BIOS open up anymore freqs for a Stock GX2..

I'll upload the SSC BIOS if anyone wants it.
I need to read and heed before I get myself into the BIOS mods.

[AuDioFreaK39]

Anyone wanna comment on their OC sweet spots with this card?
Also, has anyone dropped the SSC BIOS on their stock GX2 yet?
I'm curious about the voltage settings in the SSC BIOS (if there is a change), and will the SSC BIOS open up anymore freqs for a Stock GX2..

I'll upload the SSC BIOS if anyone wants it.
I need to read and heed before I get myself into the BIOS mods.

Oh yes, I'll take it :). But could you link me to a guide or something on how to install it? Also, would this void my warranty if I'm going to eventually Step-Up my card (even if I reverted back to the factory BIOS before Step-Up)?

[zodiac]

I'm waiting on a response on the warranty issue : )
I actually found out that the BIOS that I found earlier is from a 9600 not a 9800...it was a mislabeled download. As soon as I find I, I'll upload it though.