Home > Consumer Reviews > XFX PV-T98G-YDLU GF 9800GT 600M 512MB DDR3 DUAL DVI TV PCI Express Card

This is an excellent performance video card with a decent bundled game. It's slim enough to not overhang the next slot in your PC, comes with a power adapter if your system is too old to have a 6-pin PCIe power connector, and runs silently at idle (the onboard fan is very quiet). This card fit in my Dell Inspiron 530 desktop without any problems. While it is PCIe 2.0, it should run in any PCIe 16x slot albeit with less bandwidth (which is how I'm using it).

On my Dell Q6600 quadcore system, using the free FutureMark 3dmark06 benchmark, this board scored 11881 3DMarks (vs 5728 for my fast XFX PVT84JUDD3 GeForce 8600GT XXX 256MB GDDR3 PCI Express x16 SLI Ready Video Card (Dual DVI/S-Video). More than twice as fast...sweet! Note the benchmark is DirectX 9, not DX10.

The windows drivers for this board are part of Nvidia's long running "All GPUs in one" installer and work flawlessly on my XP system, but do download the newest version from the Nvidia site.

The components and heatsink face DOWN so they don't add to the heat in the vicinity of your CPU, and that also means you can install a slot cooler to pull that heat out of the system. The slim design means you could install the slot-cooler right next to the card. I did this for my Dell but a nice Antec case with a GPU cooling shroud would do the job much better.

Compared to the high-end 8800 based systems, this board is somewhat less power-hungry and has better DX10 support (for Vista users). Otherwise its performance is not substantially different, so moving from a 8800GT this card will not offer much of an upgrade. Compare to any other lower numbered Nvidia card, this thing rocks.

On the negative side: The board runs at 71C at idle and may cause heat problems in your system if you don't have adequate cooling. These new video cards are all very long and extend most of the way across your mainboard. Mine barely squeezes in under the memory banks; if you have a particularly bulky heatsink or capacitor on your board you may have issues.

This card is very solid and well-made. It has a nice reinforced edge to push on during install and the fan assembly is tight to the board. I think XFX is the best PC video card manufacturer today (see my review of their XFX PVT84JUDD3 GeForce 8600GT XXX 256MB GDDR3 PCI Express x16 SLI Ready Video Card (Dual DVI/S-Video)) and this card holds up.

The game packaged with this card is an outstanding FPS and as of this writing is still pretty expensive, making this card an even better value: Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare

Caveats: Make sure your PC power supply can handle the added power requirements of this machine. If your PC already runs hot, you might not want this card without adding an additional fan or slot-cooler. If you're not sure how hot the PC is running now, a utility like Nvidia's System Monitor (downloadable) can provide data. If you're a hardcore gamer, you probably want to get the new Nvidia 200 series cards which are MUCH more powerful but cost twice as much, have less stable drivers, and may take 2 slots in your PC.

Highly recommended with the above caveats.

This thing is pretty sweet! After my 8800GTS 320MB got busted (heat issues - lasted me 1 yr 8 months), I ordered this as replacement... This was way cheaper (at the time of purchase) and was able to outperform my old card! I do get some choking before on some games like Oblivion and Crysis, but now, I barely have any and there was a 10-15 FPS increase across the board using the highest settings!

Plus this came with a COD4 which seals the deal for this sweet thing as the best bang for the buck card! I admit I must have gotten the one with a free FarCry 2 since I already have COD4, but I'm not complaining.

Everyone says there is a heat issue, but that's kind of expected already... I just got a PCI system fan exhaust blower for only $3, and placed this right under the video card and it keeps the high temps at bay... running at 50's idle and 70's under load... not too much of an issue for me.

Overall, I am happy with this!

After my 7600GT died with 5 popped capacitors, I ordered this 9800GT as replacement.

The performance simply a lot better than 7600GT. But be prepared that this card is 9 inch long and make sure you have the space to fit it in. The card runs a little hot, so I bought a PCI slot blower under my card. Now it runs at around 56C idle, about 80C under load.

My CPU is a AMD X2 4200+ with AM2 socket, it became a bottleneck for GTA 4 performance. However, I can still run the game at medium quality with some settings tuned down. No complains with playing COD4, Fallout 3, NBA 2k9 at max or almost max quality on my 19" widescreen.

In a few words, this card is the best a budget gamer can get. Plus, as others mentioned, it came with COD 4 full version.
AND DON'T FORGET THE REGISTER WITH XFX TO GET LIFETIME WARRANTY!

It isn't the newest or shiniest chip-set available, but for the price, you really can't beat it considering everything you get. It can run pretty much any current generation game (Crysis excluded) on the highest settings possible at 1680x1050, and for under $200, that's really impressive.

The card runs hot, about 72C idle, but that's within spec and it's designed to withstand that kind of thermal stress. The fan is somewhat loud under load, but nothing that even ambient noise from a game doesn't cover nicely.

It also comes with Call of Duty 4, which is one of my top favorite 5 games of the year and a great value-add bundle.

If you have the money, buy this card. If not, go for the GeForce 9600 GSO/GeForce 8800 GS.

if you want your games to run smoothly just buy this great GPU, now i can run crysis and all my games at 100% with very realistic graphics :) so is always trusted to buy from XFX