With both ATI and NVIDIA releasing arrays of new cards every couple of months, with the series jumping at 3 times it’s original rate, it’s not at all easy to decide which card to go for. Recent high-end cards have already been replaced by the new 9x series by NVIDIA, leaving millions of consumers who purchased the 8800 GT Graphic cards, which costs a bomb. These new 9x series graphic cards perform better and cost cheaper than the 8800 GT cards.

zotac grahpic card

These new version cards aren’t just fast, but they’re built using smaller manufacturing processes. These cards deliver resolutions beyond 1600 x 1200 and allow you to play the latest games with the quality settings maxed out. The Zotac 9800 GTX+ Zone from Zotac comes with a passive cooler to eliminate the noise generated by conventional cooling solutions.

The 9800 GTX GPU uses a 65nm manufacturing process, with a total of 128 stream processors running at 1688 MHz. The main advantage that the 9800 GTX+ series has over the GTX is a superior 55nm manufacturing process. The GTX+ still uses 128 stream processors with 512 MB of memory running at 1100 MHz. The difference is that clock and shader speeds are a little higher, at 740 MHz and 1836 MHz respectively. The Zotac 9800 GTX+ Zone uses NVIDIA’s reference PCB, the only change being the cooler. The standard cooler has been replaced by a complete self-contained water cooling system that requires no end-user maintenance.

It consists of a water block that sits on the GPU, a pump and a 120 mm fan on a radiator module which is connected to the pump and water block via a black hose. The whole unit comes attached to the graphics card and 120mm fan and radiator module to the rear or the side of the cabinet. Apart from the water cooler, Zotac has used a large aluminum heatsink across the entire PCB to cool the memory chips and adjacent components.

The 9800 GTX+ Zone gave overall 3DMark Vantage scores of 5936 and 3695 in performance and high modes respectively. The scores are quite considerably high and the temperature of the card did not go beyond 65 Degrees Celsius, beating the former card’s constant high temperature of 75-80 Degrees Celsius. The scores doubled in SLI mode. A great card indeed.

This card will set you back by around $370, providing you an extremely fast gaming experience. Worth every cent.