NVIDIA’s new GeForce 9800 GT Series is not really new. The performance, specification and GPU are identical to that of the GeForce 8800 GT. Only a few minor features like Purevideo HD and Hybrid Power are present. Zotac showed a bit of creativity and added a bright orange PCB and higher clocks out of the box:
We have to admit that the GeForce 9800 GT does fit in the NVIDIA product stack at this point, GeForce 9 has not been about innovation anyway so far. Nevertheless the card comes at an attractive price and offers performance to play all of today’s games just fine.
Zotac added a custom-colored PCB and higher clocks to their GeForce 9800 GT Amp! Edition to make this product at least a bit more interesting. The higher clocks and high overclocking potential make this product certainly more useful, but you have to pay a price premium for it. Unless you need the GeForce 9 Series features (you probably don’t), stick with the GeForce 8800 GT and save a few dollars, unless the price difference is only $5 or $10 to get a GF9 card.
