14 DAY TRIAL // XFX has just announced two new graphics card offerings built around Nvidia's GeForce 9800 GTX graphics core. Branded as "Black Edition" the two overclocked G92 cards will only hit the market in limited units, accompanied by Ubisoft's Assassin's Creed game.
The Black Edition 9800 GTX graphics cards are factory-overclocked, in order to deliver pure performance at no extra hassle. According to the company, the graphics cores are clocked at 760MHz, while the 1 GB of GDDR3 memory and shaders will come with 2,280MHz and 1,900MHz frequencies, respectively.
An unusual aspect of the two new offerings is the presence of the reference cooling solution, with a XFX black sticker placed over the cooler. Nvidia has had quite some pains with its stock cooling solutions, that have accounted for prolonged delays, as it was the case with the 2800 GX2 behemoths. Given the fact that the Black Edition comes with higher clock frequencies, we would have expected the new cards to come with some serious fans on top.
The second graphics card released in the Black Edition series is based around Nvidia's GeForce 9800 GX2 graphics cores. The new design will feature 700MHz core clock speeds for the GPU, 1GB of GDDR3 memory working at 2,100MHz and shaders clocked at 1,700MHz.
Both offerings from XFX will come with dual DVI links, able to drive two displays at resolutions up to 2560x1600, a PCI-Express 2.0 interconnect for sustained bandwidth rates and a 256-bit memory bus. Although the specifications are extremely appealing, they are not yet available for purchase. Most of the e-tailers have listed the two Black Edition cards, but neither of them are available as of the moment of writing.
However, according to the manufacturer, they will hit the shelves soon, at starting prices of ?491.87 for the Black Edition 9800GX2 and ?309.40 for the Black Edition 9800GTX.