The GeForce 9800 GT is a GeForce 9 only by name. In reality, what we have is a GeForce 8800 GT. In the world of graphics cards, this sort of renaming exercise allows companies to sell their old cards as new. In terms of performance levels, the card is situated between the GeForce 9600 GT and the Radeon HD 4830. It keeps up with and even overtakes the Radeon at times when playing games without texturing filters activated.


The overall performance of the card means it is mostly for those who have small screens (= 5/4, 19 inches and under). On small screens it is possible to play all games from 2008. Some concessions need to be made in terms of the detail and/or disactivation of texturing filters on particularly demanding games. If you have a larger screen (upwards of 20 inches), you’ll need to settle for even lower graphic detail to get satisfying fluidity. Playing with all detail activated or on future photo-real 2009 games will require a higher performance model.

Size, energy consumption and noise

At 23 cm the card is of average size. Nothing remarkable about the original heatsink, which has the advantage of freeing up an extra PCI port but the disadvantage of not evacuating the hot air outside the casing. A single 6-pin PCI-Express power supply is all that’s needed to plug the card in. Energy consumption when idling is a little disappointing – our set-up gave a reading of 126w. With intense 3D activated, it’s better at 244w. Compare with the 121w and 321w readings for the GTX 260 and the 108w and 252w for the HD 4830. In terms of noise, you can’t call the card discrete. When idling, the fan is already noticeable (our reading was 48 dB(A)) and even annoying for those who look for a silent card. When activated, it is very noisy indeed with our reading at 58.7 dB(A).