Nvidia GeForce 9800 GT, toe-to-toe with ATI's HD 4830

Nvidia doesn't have the upper hand in too many areas of this month's Labs, but the mid-range 9800 GT is one of the few to put up a real fight.

It's basically a cut-down 9800 GTX, with 112 stream processors, a core clock running at 600MHz, and 512MB of GDDR3. It requires a single six-pin power connector to run and supports SLI, although only with two cards - you'll need to aim higher for triple-SLI.

With a typical price of around $259 it falls close to ATI's HD 4830, and the two offer similar performance. Crysis set the tone, with the 9800 GT scoring 60fps at medium settings and 30fps at high - the HD 4830 scored 65fps and 29fps respectively. The trend continued with a score of 66fps at high to the HD 4830's 67fps; both cards averaged a still-impressive 54fps at very high.

In Far Cry 2, the cards were a mere frame per second apart in both medium and high tests, and only in the demanding Call of Juarez test did the ATI card pull ahead, averaging 36fps to the 9800 GT's 27fps in our medium test.

It means there's very little to sway your decision either way. Looking at the wider picture, on either side there's a bit of a jump - the HD 4670 is around $100 cheaper, but can't compete for raw power, whereas the HD 4850 is only slightly more expensive at $273.

There's enough of a performance rise to justify the relatively tiny premium of the latter card, but if your budget is already stretched then the choice boils down to the best package of outputs and extras you can find  at which price.

• 
  Nvidia GeForce 9800 GX2
• 
  ATI Radeon HD 4650
• 
  ATI Radeon HD 4670
• 
  Nvidia GeForce 9600 GT, still almost on par with ATI's HD 4670
• 
  ATI Radeon HD 4870, why it's our new A-List graphics card
• - Recommended -
  ATI Radeon HD 4850, superb performance without the HD 4870's price tag
• 
  ATI Radeon HD 4830, can't match the 4870 but it's significantly cheaper
• 
  Nvidia GeForce 9800 GTX
• 
  Nvidia GeForce GTX 260+ (core 216)
• 
  Nvidia GeForce GTX 260
• 
  ATI Radeon HD 4850 X2
• 
  Nvidia GeForce 9800 GX2
• 
  Nvidia GeForce GTX 280
• 
  ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2
• 
  Nvidia GeForce GTX 295
• 
  Nvidia GeForce GTX 285
• 
  Nvidia GeForce 9600 GSO
• 
  Nvidia GeForce 9500 GT
• 
  ATI Radeon 4550
• 
  Nvidia GeForce 9400 GT
• - Best Value -
  ATI Radeon HD 4350, best value graphics card at budget prices