Gigabyte nVidia GeForce 9800GT 1 GB PCI-Express Video Card GV-N98TSL-1GI

by Gigabyte

Product Details

• Product Dimensions: 13.2 x 8.5 x 3.1 inches ; 1.8 pounds
• Shipping Weight: 2.6 pounds
• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B002U0KEPY
• Item model number: GV-N98TSL-1GI
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Date first available at Amazon.com: October 20, 2009

Product Description

GIGABYTE nVidia GeForce 9800GT 1GB VGA/DVI/HDMI PCI-Express Video Card

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Great Video Card, but with One Caveat ..., May 10, 2010

By 

Ray "A Reader" - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Gigabyte nVidia GeForce 9800GT 1 GB PCI-Express Video Card GV-N98TSL-1GI (Personal Computers)

This new video card, released by NVIDIA only in late 2009, is unusual because it is a high performance video card which uses a fanless design. Those two characteristics (high performance and a fanless design) are generally contradictory for video cards: as video cards become ever more capable, their VPU's (the onboard video processing unit, a CPU dedicated video tasks) generate tremendous amounts of heat. This means that you will find a slew of high performance video cards on the market today, but all of them with the requisite, and often oversized, cooling fan. Fans are OK, but fans make noise, and often lots of it. This video card by NVIDIA gets us past fan noise by employing an extensive passive cooling system consisting of copper and aluminum heat pipes and cooling fins to passively transfer and dissipate heat from the VPU to the air.

How did NVIDIA achieve this? Well, the passive cooling system on this card is physically enormous. That's a bit of an exaggeration, but not much. The card easily takes us twice the physical space of a traditional video card, taking over two PCI slots (the card is only plugged into one PCI slot, but is so physically thick that the card protrudes over the space on top of the next closest PCI slot). The design therefore allows for the implementation of a high performance card that is completely silent in operation. Really cool.

The caveat? This is a great video card with lots of processing power likely only to be taxed by the most extreme end of gaming software, but you have to have the PHYSICAL space in your computer to hold the card. On a full size system, the NVDIA GeFOrce 9800GT is is likely not going to be a problem, but on some size-reduced systems (and in other systems where the internal configuration is cramped) there may be installation difficulties. (You can read some of the comments online where a few users just couldn't get the card to fit into their system.) The card, too, because of its processing power, requires a secondary power connection using the supplied power cables (i.e., the card draws power both from the PCI slot and ALSO by the supplementary power cable), so you'll have to have a spare power plug available, or make one available using a cable splitter.

How about the features of the card itself? This is a powerful video card, with 1 Gb (!) of DDR3 (!) RAM, a PCI-E 2.0 interface (bus speed 16), and maximum resolution of 2560 x 1536. The card is laden with high end capabilities, including a 112-stream processor, "Ultra Duarble VGA" for extended life, dual-link DVI, Shader Model 4.0, PureVideo HD, PhyX Gaming Technology, and more. Although the card is built around the NVIDIA GeForce 9800 GT GPU, not the absolute latest VPU on the market, the configuration and specification of the card makes it easily fit into the "high end" video system category. There should be little that one can ask of a video system that this card will not be able to handle without even taxing it (with the exception of the the latest 3D video games, but which it should also admirably handle).

The card comes with a set of supplied cable accessories, including the six-pin power supply cable and an HDMI adapter. Drivers are available for virtually every version of Windows, including both 32-bit and 64-bit drivers for Windows 7 and Windows Vista. I am running my card in a system using Winodws 7 64-bit, and have encountered no difficulties thus far. Performance is excellent across a wide range of video tasks, and my Windows Graphics and Gaming Experience numbers are both checked in at 6.8. Another really nice touch is that the card provides all three main interface plug types: DVI, HDMI, and VGA.

This card has a somewhat high retail price, but Amazon's price at about $130 makes this a great deal. If it fits in your desktop, don't miss out on it. And, enjoy the silence!

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great performance for the price, September 28, 2010

By 

Andrew Ellsom (Atlanta, GA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Gigabyte nVidia GeForce 9800GT 1 GB PCI-Express Video Card GV-N98TSL-1GI (Personal Computers)

I bought this when my trusty 8600GT gave up. I'd tried a few BFG cards before and they'd all ended up RMA'd, so I went with Gigabyte this time. Not only does this card look good with the copper piping to cool it, but it's quick and has a good memory capacity which really helped improve performance in FSX.

I was mainly looking for a card to fix my PC, but a performance boost wasn't unwelcome and at this price it was a no-brainer.

Simple plug and play install in Windows 7 and works well with both 32-bit and 64-bit versions.

Highly recommended

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars ASTONISHING PERFORMANCE!, September 30, 2010

By 

"PO" "Dave" (Madison, Wisconsin) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Gigabyte nVidia GeForce 9800GT 1 GB PCI-Express Video Card GV-N98TSL-1GI (Personal Computers)

I am truly astonished at the Frame-rates I'm getting.

This card is a replacement for a BFG 9800GT (after less-than a year the fan went South, then of course the card overheated and died). After reading a bunch of reviews, I was convinced this card would be an upgrade

However, I was unprepared for experiencing more than DOUBLE the Frame-rates with the Gigabyte!! Astounding!

FSX is my best benchmark, and YES, I was formerly getting 15-20fps at mid-resolution. Now, I'm getting 25-45, averaging 30. Then I cranked ALL the performance settings & resolution to the max, and I was still getting 17-25fps... which is STILL better than the old card!

I don't think I have a real need to Overclock this baby... but I'll probably give it a try just to see what I can get.

Installation of the <>10" card in an HP Pavillion case was quite straightforward. Yeah, and this thing looks so cool you almost want it to be outside the case to show it off!

My system stats:
AMD Phenom Quad core @ 2.6Ghz
6-gig RAM

I have not tested the Operating temperature yet, but I trust that overheating won't be a big problem. It makes sense to install in a larger case with above average air-flow.

My advice? Go right ahead and get it!