The announcement of NVIDIA's 9800 GTX+ raises a few interesting questions for existing 9800 GTX cards. We know they'll be dropping in price to around $199, but what about the overclocked derivatives that already boast higher clock speeds than the forthcoming 9800 GTX+?
Well, XFX believes it has found the optimum solution. It has announced that its XXX and BLACK EDITION 9800 GTX cards will be re-priced this week to be competitive with the forthcoming GTX+. The advantage is that consumers can get those suped-up speeds, at those same prices, today.
Taking a brief look at speeds, you'll find that XFX's current offerings have plenty of power. What they don't have, however, is the 55nm build of the GTX+.
| XFX 9800 GTX BLACK EDITION | XFX 9800 GTX XXX | NVIDIA 9800 GTX+ | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Core Clock | 760MHz | 740MHz | 738MHz |
| Shader Clock | 1900MHz | 1850MHz | 1836MHz |
| Memory Clock | 2280MHz | 2280MHz | 2000MHz |
Once XFX has "repositioned" the cards, they should retail at around $229 - matching NVIDIA's GTX+ launch price. That should, we hope, equate to about £150.
Another little detail from XFX, is that buying a re-priced BLACK EDITION will save us having to wait three weeks for the GTX+. We're not entirely sure how accurate that three week estimate is, but it could mean 9800 GTX+ cards will land on or around July 11th.
