Sparkle Calibre P980 (9800 GT) Review - PAGE 13

Temperatures

To measure core GPU temperature, we used the hardware monitoring program in RivaTuner 2.22. The idle temperature was taken after leaving nothing running, on Vista's desktop, for a minute. The load temperature was taken after two loops of Furmark running at 1680x1050.

The Calibre P980 cooler is top-notch: it really manages to keep temperatures low with those dual fans, and is well suited for more adventurous overclocking with its low noise profile. The P980 runs ice-cold, as video card GPUs go.

Power Usage

To measure power usage, we used a Kill A Watt P4400 power meter. Note that the above numbers represent the power drain for the entire benchmarking system, not just the video cards themselves. For the 'idle' readings we measured the power drain from the desktop, with no applications running; for the 'load' situation, we took readings during a demanding part of 3DMark06.)

The overclocking boosts the power requirements for this card, pushing it above the regular 9800 GT, and into HD 4850 territory. This makes the P980 not the best 'green' option, for those of you concerned with power bills.

The P980 requires one PCI-E power connector. The box recommends a 350W power supply as a minimum. That seems a bit low, though -- we'd recommend something a bit beefier, like a 500W, especially if you are overclocking or have many other system components. This isn't to say it won't run fine with a 350W PSU -- but if you have an older one, or a generic and cheap 350W power supply, you might be pushing things in your long-term gaming sessions. 

Ho-hum standard Asus reference board design 8800 GT beside the slick Calibre P980

Conclusion

This is best of the three or four 9800 GT cards that we've reviewed here at Neoseeker. The P980 has three primary strengths that set it apart from the other 9800 GT's: first off, it has a healthy, factory overclock -- more than just a few token megahertz; second, the cooler is great -- not that loud, and great and keeping the GPU cool; third, the "Graphics Display Port" daughter card, while some might think it a gimmick, probably will appeal to many hardware enthusiasts' fetish for information on LCD displays -- we liked it.  

On top of that, the effective cooler and to a lesser extent, the temperature and fan readings on the GDP daughter card also contribute to the P980 being a strong overclocker. You can be confident that the P980 will overclock with the best of rest of the 9800 GT's, and it will not be terribly loud when doing so, if  you manually boost the fan power. 

But it's not all roses, all over. While the P980 is a great 9800 GT, when it comes to strictly value and bang-for-buck, it isn't as clearly an easy winner. As of this writing, the P980 is selling for $130 USD on a major online retailer. This is a hard sell, as often, HD 4830 and HD 4770 cards, which offer similar performance, often sell for less, and almost just as often, the next faster NVIDIA model, the GTS 250, often doesn't sell for much more than $140 or $150 (and sometimes even less.)

So to sum things up, while we recommend the Sparkle Calibre P980 for its stand-out construction, if you are looking for the best bang-for-buck contendor in the video card game, you'll have to consider the trade off between the Sparkle P980, and rest of the cut-throat competition between $100-$150 USD.