Leadtek WinFast PX9800 GTX+

INTRODUCTION

When I reviewed the Foxconn 9800 GTX Extreme OC back in May of 2008, although it did impress us with its performance, it was hard to recommend it with the premium price that the manufacturers are charging. In fact, back then, I'd even go as far as to say that the card does not really deserve the GTX label, as that label is more reserved for the top of the line, best performance card. The performance of the GTX does not seem to carry the label too well when it is compared against the old 8800GTX. 

Well, three months have passed and the new GTX 200 has been released to fill the top of the line market. And as we all know, with any new product release, the old high-end card’s price will certainly drop. And in the case of the 9800 GTX, we are not only seeing the card dropping to a meager $200, but we are also seeing a newly refreshed manufacturing process based on the first 55nm from NVIDIA, which NVIDIA gave to the new 9800 GTX+ label.

The new 55nm fabrication process not only guarantees a cooler running card (not that GeForce 9800 GTX runs hot), but NVIDIA has also decided to up the clockspeed of the card. In fact, the GeForce 9800 GTX+ is clocked at 740MHz core, 1100MHz memory (effective 2200MHz), and 1836MHz shader, as opposed to the 675MHz/1100MHz/1680MHz (core/memory/shader) found on the older GTX cards.

Like the older card, the newer card also supports NVIDIA’s CUDA, which allows the GPU to function as a CPU for computational purposes. The latest FAH has started to take advantage of this, and the preliminary results look promising. Although the newer GTX 200 series cards have a much more powerful CUDA, the fact that you get CUDA in the 9800 GTX/GTX+ means the card will be able to utilize such power when the application is able to use CUDA. 

The GeForce 9800 GTX+ also supports NVIDIA’s Hybrid Power technology. With the right chipset, the HybridPower allows the system to completely shut down the GPU and use the onboard mGPU. This will greatly save on power consumption. Unfortunately, HybridPower only works with a handful of NVIDIA based chipsets.

The new GeForce 9800 GTX+ still maintains all the features and technology of the older card. It has 128 stream processors and supports DirectX 10, Shader Model 4.0, second generation PureVideo, three-way SLI, and 128-bit HDR with FSAA. In fact, you can even run both cards in SLI without any issue, and we do intend to actually put them in SLI and see the performance. Furthermore, it also supports PhysX and is HDCP capable.

We have previously looked at the GeForce 9800 GTX+, and today we will take a look at the Leadtek 9800 GTX+ and compare it against the Foxconn 9800 GTX Extreme OC to see the performance gain of the new card vs the old highly overclocked card.  In addition, we will also compare the performance of the 9800 GTX in SLI to the GTX 260, and see whether it would be worth upgrading to a GTX 260 or to add another 9800 GTX in SLI.

LEADTEK

Founded in 1986, Leadtek is doing something slightly different than other manufacturers.  Their company has invested tremendous resource in research and developement.  In fact, they state that "Research and development has been the heart and soul of Leadtek corporate policy and vision from the start. Credence to this is born out in the fact that annually 30% of the employees are engaged in, and 5% of the revenue is invested in, R&D."

Furthermore, the company focuses on their customers and provides high quality products with added value:

"Innovation and Quality " are all and intrinsic part of our corporate policy. We have never failed to stress the importance of strong R&D capabilities if we are to continue to make high quality products with added value.

By doing so, our products will not only go on winning favorable reviews in the professional media and at exhibitions around the world but the respect and loyalty of the market.

For Leadtek, our customers really do come first and their satisfaction is paramount important to us.