nVidia 9800GX2 Review

Flaccus

I'm interested in seeing how they scale in SLI on the 790i chipset as Nvidia have made some changes here. If it's anything like the 9600gt it should be good. Also waiting for the official driver which implements Quad SLI on the GX2.

Anti

I was thinking of getting a 2 gx2's but i cant justify spending the money as there is nothing that pushes my system yet. Crysis is playable at 1680*1050 with max settings.

conzy

Kinda off topic but how are you all finding your Nvidia motherboards? I know there was some major problems with the previous generation... Are they 100% now? It would be nice to have the option of SLI on my next rig

Flaccus

Anti wrote: »

I was thinking of getting a 2 gx2's but i cant justify spending the money as there is nothing that pushes my system yet. Crysis is playable at 1680*1050 with max settings.

Without AA I assume and on High not Very High, so I guess that's not max settings then GX2's in Quad has only made marginal improvements in this game. I reckon it will be the next gen before we see big framerate increases.

TonyM.

Flaccus did you get that Freezone Elite yet I am still waiting for PC-Look to stock it.

Flaccus

Not yet. PerformancePC's in the US stock it. So does FrozenCPU (out of stock now I think). I am still debating it, as I have been looking at the CoolIT forums and the reviews (see below), and at max load (prime95) a QX6850 clocked to around 3.67 is putting out 66 degrees, probably 8-10 degrees cooler then what you could do on air, but the fan was automatically running at 100% and it's over 40Db. They did no testing for load temps and fan speed when playing a game which would be more realistic of loading a cpu for most people. So noise is a big factor with the Elite.

Review
http://techgage.com/article/coolit_freezone_elite_cpu_cooler/

CoolIT forums
http://www.coolitsystems.com/index.php?option=com_fireboard&Itemid=165&func=view&id=1488&catid=4
http://www.coolitsystems.com/index.php?option=com_fireboard&Itemid=165&func=view&id=1238&catid=4

Regarding air, I have tried all the solutions, and current favourite is the new Noctua cooler with 2 super quiet noctua p12 fans in a push pull arrangement. Anand said it matched the current leader, the TRU.

This seems like a much cheaper and almost as effective solution as the Freezone Elite, plus virtually silent.
http://www.anandtech.com/casecoolingpsus/showdoc.aspx?i=3268

conzy

Why not watercooling? That Freezone thingy is gimmick-tastic, If you dont want the hassle associated with watercooling then the Swiftech H20 220 Compact would be perfect, it performs great and its really quiet (Its basically an Apogee GT block with a MCP350 pump on it) The res is part of the Radiator too so theres only 2 components to install, the block and the rad



Theres a 120mm version too....

Flaccus

Nice one mate. Thanks for that.

Yeah, I was going to do a full watercooling setup, then I was looking at the vapochill lightspeed. End of day I don't want to cut up my beautiful case.

I'll take a look at the swiftech.
Who stocks it ?

Interesting, this review says it's not as good as high end air cooling..so maybe the Noctua NH-U12P which I linked to above would be worth keeping.

TonyM.

http://www.specialtech.co.uk/spshop/customer/product.php?productid=5075&cat=606&page=1

The Swiftech h2o-220 is the 120mm fan version only £30 dearer .

I also looked at the Alphacool Cool Answers 111 there was an extreme version available at one stage .

conzy

Its considerably better than the best aircooler, especially on a Quad

http://www.custompc.co.uk/reviews/125910/swiftech-h2o-120-compact.html

Flaccus

Read the review again. They only say it's quieter then the Tuniq.
They say it might not sound much better then the tuniq but go on to say the tuniq cooled 1C better. Win to Tuniq. The only thing negative they can say about the Tuniq is it needs a case fan to exhaust the hot air. I see no evidence to backup your claim "Its considerably better than the best aircooler, especially on a Quad". If anything it doesn't appear to be. And their conclusion is :

"At 7V, the fan is practically silent, and can successfully cool a heavily overclocked and overvolted quad-core CPU. This is overkill for a dual-core CPU, so the £30 Tuniq Tower 120 is a better bet, unless you simply fancy having water cooling"

I have learned not to believe custompc's reviews of anything. I remember they reviewed the Akasa Mirage and made a big deal about the "alumiunium" door panel, even though the door is plastic, prooving they didn't even have the product. Their fan roundup last year gained a lot of criticism, same with some of the heatsink reviews. As regards this review they give no empirical evidence, and don't even say if they are testing overclocked at idle or load. Maybe they are wrong about this too

The 220 seems to do better though.
http://www.cluboverclocker.com/reviews/super_cooling/swiftech/H20-220Compact/page3.asp

Flaccus

TonyM. wrote: »

http://www.specialtech.co.uk/spshop/customer/product.php?productid=5075&cat=606&page=1

The Swiftech h2o-220 is the 120mm fan version only £30 dearer .

I also looked at the Alphacool Cool Answers 111 there was an extreme version available at one stage .

Thanks for your help Tony and Conzy.
Performance PC's have it in stock.
Just ordered one.

http://www.performance-pcs.com/catalog/index.php?main_page=advanced_search_result&search_in_description=1&keyword=Swiftech+220

It's also in stock here :

http://www.frozencpu.com/products/6875/ex-wat-125/Swiftech_H20-220_Compact_CPU_Liquid_Cooling_Kit_.html

Have bought from both of these sites before but found shipping quicker with Performance, and they take PayPal and happened to have money stuck in my account.

conzy

The 220 is the one I recommened, but even the 120 can handle heavily overclocked Quads comfortably, but the Tuniq would struggle...

Anyway, nice Purchase

Flaccus

Oh yeah..right..sorry. The link was for the 120 which didn't do so well I thought. Thanks.

Overclocking a 3.0 or 3.2 45nano quad to 3.6 or even 4 is easy with a Tuniq, Big Typhoon, TRU etc.., especially the qx9650 which runs a hell of a lot cooler then the qx9770. So I guess for these speeds the Swiftech is overkill. Maybe 4.5ghz then

All I am waiting on now is the courier to stop driving around with my case in the back of his van and deliver it and the small matter of whether to get a 9800gtx or gx2. Will decide when proper gtx reviews come out. Meanwhile what is in my sig is roughly what I will end up with.

awhir

Flaccus wrote: »

Oh yeah..right..sorry. The link was for the 120 which didn't do so well I thought. Thanks.

Overclocking a 3.0 or 3.2 45nano quad to 3.6 or even 4 is easy with a Tuniq, Big Typhoon, TRU etc.., especially the qx9650 which runs a hell of a lot cooler then the qx9770. So I guess for these speeds the Swiftech is overkill. Maybe 4.5ghz then

All I am waiting on now is the courier to stop driving around with my case in the back of his van and deliver it and the small matter of whether to get a 9800gtx or gx2. Will decide when proper gtx reviews come out. Meanwhile what is in my sig is roughly what I will end up with.

its such i nice case got 1 here right beside me :rolleyes: , he probly cant fit it in his VAN !!

conzy

Flaccus do you have the 9800GX2(s) yet? Is it loud?

Flaccus

I have decided to put Noctua P12 fans in along with a Zalman 6 channel fan controller. Also bought the replacement top panel from PerformancePC's which takes 2 more fans.

So I guess that will make 4 intakes, and 3 outakes, 4 if you include the fan for the watercooling.

Does the Lian Li case vibrate/resonate etc... Any issues with it. This case is going to take quad or tri sli hopefully.

TonyM.

conzymaher wrote: »

Its considerably better than the best aircooler, especially on a Quad

http://www.custompc.co.uk/reviews/125910/swiftech-h2o-120-compact.html[/url
QUOTE]

Komplett have a B-grade 8800 ultra for €290.00 btw.

I WILL PROBABLY GO FOR THE 220.

conzy

conzymaher wrote: »

Flaccus do you have the 9800GX2(s) yet? Is it loud?

:P

Tony M 290 euro seems to good to be true! It could be in bits.. But if its broken wont XFX have to RMA it?

Im tempted to get it but i'd like to see so more 9800GTX / GX2 Prices / reviews first over the next few weeks

Flaccus

No GX2 yet.

The GTX is launching tuesday and depending on reviews, I'll be getting one or the other.

conzy

ok, the 9800GX2 seems like the winner so far

RoyalMarine

myself and squall will have gx2's in a week

he's getting 1 im getting 2. also getting 2 9600gt's so ill let you know how they bench against each other.
plenty of reviews but none of them really mention temps and noise level's.

anyone seen a waterblock for a gx2 yet?

Chosen

RoyalMarineComm wrote: »

anyone seen a waterblock for a gx2 yet?

No, but I've seen this

If the images are down, it's because his website is being moved to a different host.

Flaccus

deleted

conzy

Not sure about that ^

The 9800GX2 looks pretty awesome now that the 9800GTX is so crap

---

8800 Ultra

---

9800 GX2

---

%Diff
Call of Duty

---

70FPS

---

110FPS

---

57% faster
Call of Duty 4Xaa

---

55.7FPS

---

83.1FPS

---

49% faster
Crysis High Quality

---

25.8FPS

---

39.4FPS

---

52% faster
Oblivion

---

46FPS

---

84.3FPS

---

83% faster
Oblivion 4XAA

---

36.1FPS

---

63.9FPS

---

77% faster
Quake Wars

---

85.2FPS

---

120.4FPS

---

41% faster
Stalker

---

48.8FPS

---

73.3FPS

---

50% faster
Word in Conflict

---

30FPS

---

33FPS

---

10% faster.

---

---

3870x2

---

9800 GX2 --- %Diff
3DMark06

---

14,190

---

14,167

---

23 Points lower!
Crysis

---

13FPS

---

22FPS

---

69% faster
Lost Planet

---

24FPS

---

31FPS

---

29% faster
Lost Planet 8xAA/16xAF

---

11FPS

---

13FPS

---

18% faster
Company of Heros

---

56FPS

---

77FPS

---

37% faster
Word in Conflict

---

34FPS

---

41FPS

---

20% faster
Word in Conflict 4xAA/16xAF

---

14FPS

---

26FPS

---

85% faster
Half Life

---

111FPS

---

115FPS

---

3% faster
Half Life 8xAA/16xAF

---

73FPS

---

76FPS

---

4% faster
NeedForSpeed

---

48FPS

---

102FPS --- 112% faster
NeedForSpeed 4xAA

---

33FPS

---

91FPS --- 175% faster
Unreal Tournament

---

112FPS

---

109FPS

---

2% slower
Quake4

---

115FPS

---

120FPS

---

4% faster
Lost Planet

---

11FPS

---

13FPS ---- 18% faster
FEAR 4xAAx16xAF

---

87FPS

---

79FPS ---- 10% slower

the 8800GTX can be had for $320 now in a lot of places

Flaccus

Conzy, where are you getting the reviews for the GTX. Don't say Tweaktown

I really hope quad gx2's outperforms tri sli gtx's as I want to use my X-Fi

p.s. I discovered you can have a signed driver that is beta or not whql'd and it will work fine on Vista 64 SP1 e.g. coretemp, rivatuner, nvidia graphics. Doh!.

conzy

Some guy on XS made the chart, the 9800GX2 VS 8800Ultra is from Anandtech. The 9800GX2 VS 3870 X2 is from some asian site

http://publish.it168.com/2008/0315/20080315000604.shtml

Id say the Quad GX2 will walk all over Tri GTX

Flaccus

I guess we will know for sure on Tuesday

TonyM.

at max load (prime95) a QX6850 clocked to around 3.67 is putting out 66 degrees, probably 8-10 degrees cooler then what you could do on air, but the fan was automatically running at 100% and it's over 40Db. They did no testing for load temps and fan speed when playing a game which would be more realistic of loading a cpu for most people. So noise is a big factor with the Elite.

Re: The Freezone Elite.

The game is on again I can source it for £249.00 as for the noise it will be replacing 3 x 120mm fans so for everyday use with a good fan it would be near silent.

Flaccus

Where can you get it for that price Tony ?

I assume you are going to watercool the gpu, and northbridge too ? Cause getting rid of all your fans if you're not might not be a good idea.

I agree with what you said in your last post about the Freezones performance too. Not great for the noise level and no mention of performance when gaming. I mentioned the same thing when looking for opinions on it on a couple of other forums. I have also spoken to 2 people on evga forums who had it and got rid of it. Mainly the cooling wasn't worth the noise level, and changing out the fan for something quieter voids the warranty, probably upsets the software too which is calibrated with that fan in mind. Another thing is on some motherboards it interferes with that mosfet heatsinks behind the cpu socket. Seems to be the case with the 790i. Too risky for me to try for that kind of money.

I think the Swiftech 220 compact will be the best solution myself. Not hard to install and will definitely fit, and costs less and performs better then the freezone elite I reckon.

TonyM.

http://search.ebay.co.uk/_W0QQsassZtramco73




ok I agree going for the 220 as well shame about the freezone maybe the next version will be for overclockers I hope they keep working on it .

Nforce

I was running a Coolit Freezone on a QX6700 and was less than impressed with the results.......and yes...it's pretty loud too:(

awhir

Lads why not do Reall watercooling Its Fun !!

and fall you dont have to go cutting anything

this is a PA120.2 which is the best in its class and it will fit where the drive bays were-if you want more space you can fit a swiftech 120.2 rad

conzy

Who made the HDD mount that attaches to the rad? Good idea

TonyM.

awhir wrote: »

Lads why not do Reall watercooling Its Fun !!

and fall you dont have to go cutting anything

this is a PA120.2 which is the best in its class and it will fit where the drive bays were-if you want more space you can fit a swiftech 120.2 rad

http://www.chilledpc.co.uk/shop/index.php?cPath=105

Are these kits worth the money.

also do you have to jump start the psu to get the water running before the computer starts?

conzy

No, its not gonna boil the water that quickly

awhir

TonyM. wrote: »

also do you have to jump start the psu to get the water running before the computer starts?

no the pump starts with when the mobo is powered on.

and if you want do a leak test you can jump start the psu by shorting 2 pins.

TonyM.

http://www.chilledpc.co.uk/shop/product_info.php?cPath=105&products_id=474

I just ordered from Chilledpc you just click on Paypal express and they setup an account for you automatically if only every e-tailer was as easy to do business with.

TonyM.

They made me a Moderator??

i want to start banning people

sebastianlieken

wah? how did you become a mod???

ooh ooh ooh..... BAN ME! gowan I DARES YA!

(ul actually be doin me a solid, ive got so much work due for friday. im up now at freekin 2.40 doin stupid essay n messin away on boards...blah blah.....[/rambeling]

EDIT....wtf?....im a mod now....[/moment of stupidity]

AlmightyCushion

It's a new community modding thing the admins are trying out. Everyone (more or less) is going to be giving mod status and mod powers. It's so we can cut down on the time it takes to remove libelous posts and things like that. Please remember to use the mod functions wisely when you get access. I've already had one person try and ban me from one of my own forums.

PogMoThoin

Am I a mod?

Edit, wahey, I am,

Time to have some fun

Wait, hold on, its april fools day

Flaccus

awhir wrote: »

no the pump starts with when the mobo is powered on.

and if you want do a leak test you can jump start the psu by shorting 2 pins.

The swiftech instructions do say to test it without powering on the mobo though by jump starting the psu.

Let us know how you get on Tony, as I'm sure you will have it before mine arrives from the US.

TonyM.

Flaccus wrote: »

The swiftech instructions do say to test it without powering on the mobo though by jump starting the psu.

Let us know how you get on Tony, as I'm sure you will have it before mine arrives from the US.

http://www.cluboverclocker.com/reviews/super_cooling/swiftech/H20-220Compact/index.asp

IT was shipped today I will probably have it by friday .


BTW keep away from internet explorer 8 beta its really buggy.

awhir

TonyM. wrote: »

http://www.cluboverclocker.com/reviews/super_cooling/swiftech/H20-220Compact/index.asp

IT was shipped today I will probably have it by friday .


BTW keep away from internet explorer 8 beta its really buggy.

you shouldent be even going near IE , FireFox all teh way !!!

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=182712

TonyM.

Flaccus wrote: »

The swiftech instructions do say to test it without powering on the mobo though by jump starting the psu.

Let us know how you get on Tony, as I'm sure you will have it before mine arrives from the US.

OK I got delivery today and four hours later i finally got my computer working.
Everything seemed to be working but the computer would not boot finally
I discovered the backplate was wrong i used the one from the old cooler instead of taking out the mainboard but it must have been slightly off.I am now having C1 errors and i can only boot with one stick of ram in the last slot .

PS the cooler is working fine its not silent but quiet enough at low settings
i am getting 36c overclocked to 3.30mhz. ( TAT )

conzy

erm... if you used the wrong backplate and you are now having problems like that you probably shorted out your board

TonyM.

conzymaher wrote: »

erm... if you used the wrong backplate and you are now having problems like that you probably shorted out your board

NO almost right booting with both sticks in the last two slots i know that means it is not working in dual channell but it will do for now

Flaccus

Tony,

Hows the kit going for you now...had to cancel mine and reorder elsewhere.


Hope you don't mind a few questions

1. I take it the 36 degrees you are getting is idle...what temps do you reach when running prime......how much better then the aircooler is it, which I would expect to go into the mid 60's at that clock setting.

2. Any issues fitting it in the Akasa case. Any problems clamping stuff down ?

3. Are the fans noticeable all the time or only under load (I take it they are temp controlled)

4. Where did you buy deionised water to mix up the fluid with ?

5. It looks like from your last post you didn't run it 24 hours to test for leaks ? Wondering why ?

thanks mate

awhir

you can get destilled water ( all you need) from nearly any chemist.

leak testing would not be very hard with that quite since you are only joining 4 barbs.