Graphics developer Nvidia has officially launched its GeForce 9800 GTX graphics card, bringing both full-bore graphics capabilities and power management to serious gamers.
The GeForce 9800 GTX features 128 cores with a shader clock running 1,688 MHz, a 256-bit memory interface, and 512 MB of GDDR3 memory. The cards support Microsoft DirectX 10, have a max memory bandwidth of 70.4 GB/s, and incorporate Nvidia’s PureVideo HD engine for playback of high-definition video content. Serious games, of course, will want to double up on GPUS: the 9800 GTX supports Nvidia’s SLI capabilities for as much as doubling graphics performance when combined with a second 9800 GTX on systems with SLI-ready motherboards—and truly extreme players can wrap together three 9800 GTX cards for up to 2.8 times faster performance.
The Nvidia GeForce 9800 GTX is available now at prices starting around $330.