9800GTX+, is that you?

So yesterday I went to Lowyat with my father to get some stuff to put into my elder sister’s PC and saw this. I went there to buy a new PSU and a new graphics card due to the older ones being broken (I am sooo like feeling to commit a Hannibal Lecture on those housemates of hers who are sooo un-tech savvy that they have very little regard on not shutting down a PC on a task - by turning off the main power source and not the PC first). Although the whole process of product negotiations with the dealer was quite a hassle due to the involvement of my father (who apparently not even 50% discounts doesn’t seem to be enough for his thinking) haggling for the price of both the PSU (which he only managed a MYR 19 reduction) and graphics card (he didn’t manage to do it due to my persistence, the stuff being of a fixed price, plus too much time wasted on decisions), so I got back with these two stuff below:

It isn't "superb" for nothing if it wasn't for the price, eh?

PSU: Gigabyte “Superb” 720w MYR 259, bought for MYR 240.

Originally I and my father was aiming for a CoolerMaster Extreme Power 650w which was priced at MYR 290, but then when I saw that Gigabyte PSU with that amount of power output (720w) and price (MYR 259)  I suddenly thought of changing my decision for that PSU in favor for the price and power output; and had quite a debate with my father who argued that CoolerMaster is better (all in front of the dealer) until I pointed out proof how my choice was better than the initial choice. Okay end of story. Now for the graphics.

Graphics card: Zotac GTS250 1GB, non-AMP! (picture at beginning of post), MYR 580

Probably the one stuff I debated a lot with my father over my decision on getting it. Well, my arguments was quite pretty discreditable if it wasn’t for the reason “more performance with a nice price is better” and that he has run out of arguments due to the amount of time we wasted on debating on it (all in front of the dealer)…

To be honest, though, I was actually aiming for a 9800GTX+. But then I saw this (apparently a Gigabyte GTS250 1GB model) and negotiated for the price. All seems set and whatnot, until I saw the said Zotac GTS 250 1GB model – and at the same price as the Gigabyte model. Went ahead and asked for it, and you expected it – the debate sessions with my father. Long story short, we bought it anyway.

Anyway, when I saw it, little did I realize I actually achieved my aim – unconsciously. Err, great? Maybe. As soon as I got back to the dorms to assemble them all one of the reactions I first received upon greeting this guy was “Whoa, doesn’t seem like a joke stuff to me.” And so we decided to research into the model and… yes, the Internet told me “GTS 250 = repackaged 9800 GTX+.” And imagine the shock I had that night – a smirk was all over my face when I found that out.

While the PSU and graphics card was fine at best, the only annoying factor I found was with my sister’s PC itself. This guy told me that the PC has quite some issues itself – slow loading, crashings and hangs and bluescreens – which quickly remind me of how my sister asked for the PC to be done in a flash which resulted in a mix-and-match mess of a PC which doesn’t have much to boast. And knowing my own sister, a slow loading PC prone to crashes and/or hangs isn’t something that will bid well with her way of work (loading another dozen tasks before even one task can even finish loading – and with every single one of them being horribly painful time-consuming tasks of all things)…. well, God knows how horrible that feeling is.

Anyway, the stuff is done there, assembly complete, what’s left is to get some stuff in order to get stuff working right again.

On March 3rd 2009, Nvidia has officially renamed their GeForce 9800 GTX+ video card to GeForce GTS 250 and this is the first gpu of Nvidia’s GeForce GTS 200 series and another card that is said to come from this series is GTS 240 which is a rebranded 9800 GT, this series of cards are based on Nvidia’s 55nm G92b core, Nvidia is schedule to officially rename its G92-based graphics cards series.
It all started with 8800 GTS rebranded to 9800 GTX and 9800 GTX get an overclocked version which is 9800 GTX+ in which Nvidia upped the clocks by reducing the die from 65nm to 55nm and finally it gets the name of GeForce GTS 250. Nvidia’s GeForce 9800 GTX+ was released in July 2008 with a purpose to compete ATI’s Radeon HD 4850.

Nvidia GeForce GTS 250

GeForce GTS 250 VS GeForce 9800 GTX+
I know the whole internet is full of why the hell is Nvidia bringing a gpu that is already in the market, yes, there is no difference in both 9800 GTX+ and GTS 250, but, GTS 250 has slight differences and the main difference is a new VBIOS, also Nvidia set the standard memory for GTS 250 to 1GB instead of 512MB and some of Nvidia partners are going to launch even 2GB memory version of this graphics card. Another difference is GTS 250 length, this card has a 9 inches long PCB instead of large 10.5 inches long PCB of 9800 GTX+. Another change is that GTS 250 requires only one PCI-Express power connector instead of two power connectors and runs at maximum TDP of 150W which is good for users with older power supplies that have only one PCI-E power connector. Beside this slight difference between GeForce GTS 250 and GeForce 9800 GTX+, both cards comes with same specs and features.

Specifications
Nothing to get excited because GTS 250 is rebranded 9800 GTX+, 9800 GTX+ is an overclocked 9800 GTX and 9800 GTX is a rebranded 8800 GTS.
But still I will list specifications here, GPU clocks for this card are 738MHz and Stream Processors are running at 1836MHz, it has 128 Shader Processors and Texture Fill Rate is 47.2 billion/sec. Standard Memory configuration is 512MB or 1GB GDDR3 with a Memory Interface Width of 256-bit, Memory Clocks are at 1100MHz (2200MHz Effective) and Memory Bandwidth is 70.4GB/sec.

Features
Some of the features of GeForce GTS 250

• NVIDIA® PureVideo® HD Technology
• Dual-stream Hardware Acceleration
• 3-way and 2-way NVIDIA SLI® Technology
• NVIDIA PhysX™ Technology
• NVIDIA CUDA™ Technology
• NVIDIA HybridPower™ Technology
• PCI Express 2.0 Support

Pricing
A 1GB GeForce GTS 250 will cost you around US $149.99 and it’s 512MB version will cost you around US $129.99. Whereas a 512MB 9800 GTX card is available around US $149.99.

Availability
These video cards are said to arrive retail stores by March 10.

Last night I had the opportunity to either:

1. Go the a mate’s 21st
2. Go to a Toshiba training night
3. Go the the Toshiba training night, then spend limited time at my mate’s 21st

I took option 3, and, to say the least, the training night was rather dull. However, I did get to see a prototype of their upcoming behemoth, the Qosmio X305. Originally slated for release on July the 14th, the X305 has been delayed until October (or so my not-so-helpful friend from Toshiba told me) with the estimated retail price tag of $3999 stuck to it.

Judging by its pricing (it is $1200 more expensive than the next Qosmio down), its specifications and its shock of red flames, it looks like Toshiba is forging into new territory with this laptop; designed to compete with the likes of Dell’s XPS and Alienware range, HP’s Voodoo PC range and other boutique gaming PC Manufacturers (Maingear, Falcon Northwest etc.)

Shock of red flame goodness

It is running the new Centrino 2 system, which consists of a Penryn P9400, Intel’s 45 Express chipset and a Boazman Wireless adaptor; apparently giving up to a 2 hour life-span on battery and a wireless N-series adaptor capable of a 450mbps transfer rate, a range of 150m and the ability to run on a 5.0ghz frequency.

Undoubtedly, a lot of this spew thrown at me was a marketing speel but the Qosmio X305 (or as it was codenamed, predator; stupid code-name really) did, apparently, sport some impressive gear (I wasn’t wholly sure it was correct because the system we were looking at was a concept system… it was vague, strangely bare and not exactly finished). Not only was it running a P9400, but it had a 17″ screen capable of displaying 1680×1050 resolution. Apparently, it also has two hardrives, one 200GB hard drive running at 7200rpm and another 320GB hard drive running at 5400rpm. They have also included a new connector called “eSATA”, which basically looks like a SATA port on the outside of the machine (yes, it threw me at first as well), but is similar to USB in that you can plug in external eSATA drives (rare at the moment, and all of them powered, unlike USB, eSATA cannot impart power to external devices) and do stuff with them. Apparently it is 5x faster than USB 2.0… we’ll see…

One of the most contentious issues with the Qosmio was the graphics card. All of the above specs were all fine and dandy, but it was this that I was most interested in. Unfortunately, our cut down model we were looking at didn’t indicate what graphics card was inside it, vaguely calling it a “Standard VGA Adaptor”. Nor was there 4GB or RAM as I was told there would be… it was half that. However, I was tentatively told, by my not-so-helpful friend at Toshiba, that the release model would feature, not only 4GB of DDR3 RAM, but a monstrous 9800GTX graphics card with 1GB of discrete memory and a further 2GB of dynamic memory (holy crap, not even the whole Osmond family’s teeth requires that!).

One thing of note… amusingly. I decided to snoop around on the laptop while no one was looking to see what I could find. I burst out laughing when I discovered, inside a folder named “Crysis” (which, heavens above, I thought was the program folder for the game Crysis, which is was in a roundabout way), several sequential files, followed by a folder named “Razor1911″

Yes, Toshiba themselves… download cracked games!

Club 3D acaba de anunciar el lanzamiento de una nueva gráfica: 9800GTX, basada en el último chipset G92 de Nvidia, y que destaca por estar diseñada para ofrecer un gran rendimiento para usuarios avanzados. En España, Activa 2mil será la encargada de comercializar esta tarjeta gracias al acuerdo que mantienen ambas compañías.

La nueva tarjeta de Club3D pertenece a la familia de gráficas de gama alta, y entre sus elementos destacables, presenta soporte para Nvidia Pure Video HD, HDCP, DirectX 10 y Nvidia SLI. Además, incluye 2xDual Link DVI: salida doble para monitores de alta resolución de hasta 2560×1600 digital.

Ficha técnica HD 3870X2:
Chipset: Nvidia G92. Memoria: 512 MB GDDR3. Core Clock: 675 MHz. Memory Clock: 2200 MHz. Memory Bus: 256 bit. Shader Model 4.0. 2x Dual Link DVI y HDCP. Microsoft DirectX 10.1. Max. Resolución: 2560×1600

PVP Club3D 9800GTX : 278 € (IVA incluido)