The graphics accelerator for assembling budget PCs in 2009 with one of the best technical specifications for this niche is the NVidia GiFors 9800 GT. The characteristics of this accelerator at the time of its start of sales allowed to launch most of the toys. At the same time, he could also solve other tasks (video playback, image editing, for example) .
Video adapter niche
As noted earlier, the entry-level solutions used to include the 9800 GT video adapter. The characteristics and positioning of it by the manufacturer itself in the person of NVidia was an additional confirmation of this. Even at the time of release, this accelerator allowed you to run most of the toys, but far from the maximum settings. Now its capabilities look very modest and put the hero of this review almost on a par with integrated video adapters.
GPU Technical Parameters
The G92 GPU is based on the 9800 GT graphics card . The characteristics of this silicon crystal indicate that it was produced according to the standards of the 55 nm process. But you can also find its modifications, which were manufactured according to the tolerance standards already with 65 nm (earlier versions of this product). The total number of transistor elements in this case is equal to 754 million pieces. The clock frequency for the GPU core was 600 MHz, and the shader processing modules were 1500 MHz, of which 112 was part of this product. In turn, the number of TMU modules for each pipeline was 56. But the ROPs were 16. From the software point view this graphics accelerator met the specifications of Direct X version 10.0. It was recommended to install such video accelerators in the expansion slot PCI-E 16 X version 2.0.
RAM. Features of the video buffer management subsystem
The GT 9800 was aimed at the use of GDDR3 standard memory chips. The characteristics of the graphic chip indicated that their clock frequencies should have been equal to 1800 MHz. The volume of the video buffer in such accelerators could be equal to 512 MB or 1 GB. The key feature of this product was that the interface for exchanging information with the video buffer had a resolution of 256 bits. It is due to this design feature that such accelerators to this day have an acceptable level of performance and still allow you to solve most problems. Also, this factor significantly increases the throughput of the video memory subsystem, which in this case corresponds to a value of 57 Gb / s.
Direct competitors
The direct competitor was the Radeon HD4770 at the time of the release of the NVidia 9800 GT. The characteristics of these accelerators were very similar, and the performance level was comparable. But HD4770 is not widely used due to the low yield of semiconductor crystals. As a result, ATI was forced to oppose the hero of this review with the less powerful HD4730 graphics adapter. But his cost, albeit insignificantly, was lower. In one of the most popular and demanding toys of 2009 for Crysis hardware in 1280 x 1024 mode and with DX10 activation, these accelerators could produce the following number of frames per second:
- HD4730 - 21-29 fps.
- 9800 GT - 22-30 fps.
- HD4770 - 24-32 fps.
A similar arrangement is preserved in the Stalker game (Clear Sky version) in 1680 x 1050 mode:
- HD4730 - 13-23 fps.
- 9800 GT - 13-25 fps.
- HD4770 - 15-28 fps.
As a result, it can be noted that these accelerators did not have significant differences, and their level of performance was really identical. In essence, the choice came down to the personal preferences of a particular buyer.
Accelerator price. Owner reviews
The hardware parameters that are inherent in such an accelerator make it possible to solve most problems even now. The most striking confirmation of this is that at the minimum settings, this accelerator allows you to run the recently released GTA V. Given the cost on international trading platforms on the Internet (450 rubles - version with 512 MB; 900 rubles - modification with 1 GB of RAM) this is really fantastic achievement. But the best times of this accelerator have long been in the past, and now there are more productive solutions that you need to focus on when assembling a new PC.
Summary
A landmark video accelerator in the segment of entry-level products in 2009 was the 9800 GT. Characteristics at the moment look very modest. But from the moment its sales began, a really long time had passed by the standards of the computer world, and in such a situation there is nothing special. But the nuance that this video card can pull one of the most modern most demanding GTA V toys at the very minimum settings really characterizes it from the best side.