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Review by: Daniel

Date: April 6, 2009

Provided by: Sparkle USA

 

Sparkle GeForce 9800GT HDMI Video Card Review

Sparkle is a Taiwanese video card manufacturer that  offers NVIDIA GPU's exclusively.  They offer NVIDIA's full range of video cards, from the GeForce FX 5200 all the way to the GeForce GTX 285.  Today, we will be looking at the Sparkle GeForce 9800GT HDMI.  This video card offers a GeForce 9800GT GPU with 512MB of GDDR3 memory and comes with a low-profile bracket, which allows this card to be installed in smaller PC's, such as a home-theater PC.

Although the SLI Ready logo is on the box, this model does not support SLI.

Upon opening the box, you will find the users manual, installation CD, a DVI to VGA adapter, SPDIF cable (for audio through HDMI) and a low-profile PCI-Express bracket.

Here are some of the main features and specifications from Sparkle's Website

Model number : SX98GT512D3L-NM

Graphics Processing Unit : NVIDIA GeForce 9800GT (G92)

Stream Processors : 112

Core Clock : 600MHz

Memory Clock : 1800 MHz

Memory Type : 512MB GDDR3

Memory Interface : 256-Bit

Shader Clock : 1500 MHz

Bus Type : PCI-Express 2.0

RAMDAC : 400 MHz


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NVIDIA® unified architecture
Fully unified shader core dynamically allocates processing power to geometry, vertex, physics, or pixel shading operations, delivering up to 2x the gaming performance of prior generation GPUs

Full Microsoft® DirectX® 10 support
DirectX 10 GPU with full Shader Model 4.0 support delivers unparalleled levels of graphics realism and film-quality effects

NVIDIA® SLI™ technology
Delivers up to 2x the performance of a single GPU configuration for unparalleled gaming experiences by allowing two graphics cards to run in parallel. The must-have feature for performance PCI Express® graphics, SLI technology dramatically scales performance on today’s hottest games.

PCI Express 2.0 support
Designed to run perfectly with the new PCI Express 2.0 bus architecture, offering a future-proofing bridge to tomorrow’s most bandwidth-hungry games and 3D applications by maximizing the 5 GT/s PCI Express 2.0 bandwidth (twice that of first generation PCI Express).PCI Express 2.0 products are fully backwards compatible with existing PCI Express motherboards for the broadest support.

GigaThread™ Technology
Massively multi-threaded architecture supports thousands of independent, simultaneous threads, providing extreme processing efficiency in advanced, next generation shader programs

NVIDIA® Lumenex™ Engine
Delivers stunning image quality and floating point accuracy at ultra-fast frame rates:
16x Anti-aliasing: Lightning fast, high-quality anti-aliasing at up to 16x sample rates obliterates jagged edges
128-bit floating point High Dynamic-Range(HDR):Twice the precision of prior generations for incredibly realistic lighting effects-now 
with support for anti-aliasing

NVIDIA® Quantum Effects™ Technology
Advanced shader processors architected for physics computation enable a new level of physics to be simulated and rendered on the GPU –all white freeing the CPU to run game engine and AI

NVIDIA® ForceWare® Unified Driver Architecture (UDA)
Delivers a proven record of compatibility reliability and stability with the widest range of games and applications
ForceWare provides the best out-of-box experience and delivers continuous performance and feature updates over the life of NVIDIA GeForce® GPUs

OpenGL® 2.1 optimizations and support
Ensures top-notch compatibility and performance for OpenGL applications

Dual 400MHz RAMDACs
Blazing-fast RAMDACs support dual QXGA displays with ultra-high, ergonomic refresh rates –up to 2048x1536@85Hz.

Dual Dual-Link DVI Support
Able to drive industry’s largest and highest resolution flat-panel displays up to 2560x1600 and with support for High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection(HDCP).

NVIDIA PureVideo HD technology
The combination of high-definition video decode acceleration and post-processing that delivers unprecedented picture clarity, smooth video, accurate color, and precise image scaling for movies and video.

Discrete, Programmable Video Processor
NVIDIA PureVideo is a discrete programmable processing core in NVIDIA GPUs that provides superb picture quality and  ultra-smooth movies with 100% offload of H.264 video decoding from the CPU and significantly reduced power consumption.

Hardware Decode Acceleration
Provides ultra-smooth playback of H.264, VC-1, WMV and PEG-2 HD and SD movies.

HDCP Capable:
Designed to meet the output protection management (HDCP) and security specifications of the Blu-ray Disc and HD DVD formats, 
allowing the playback of encrypted movie content on PCs when connected to HDCP-compliant displays.

Dynamic contract Enhancement:
Provides spectacular picture clarity with frame-by-frame optimization, 
allowing the playback of encrypted movie content on PCs when connected to HDCP-compliant displays.

Advanced Spatial-Temporal De-Interlacing
Sharpens HD and standard definition interlaced content on progressive displays, delivering a crisp, clear picture that rivals high-end home-theater systems.

High-Quality Scaling
Enlarges lower resolution movies and videos to HDTV resolutions, up to 1080i, while maintaining a clear, clean image. Also provides downscaling of videos, including high-definition, while preserving image detail.

Inverse Telecine (3:2 & 2:2 Pulldown Correction)
Recovers original film images from films-converted-to-video (DVDs, 1080i HD content), providing more accurate movie playback and superior picture quality.

Bad Edit Correction
When videos are edited after they have been converted from 24 to 25 or 30 frames, the edits can disrupt the normal 3:2 or 2:2 pulldown cadence. PureVideo uses advanced processing techniques to detect poor edits, recover the original content, and display perfect picture detail frame after frame for smooth, natural looking video.

Noise Reduction :
Improves movie image quality by removing unwanted artifacts.

Dual Stream Decode Acceleration :
Hardware acceleration for HD picture-in-picture enables a complete HD movie playback experience.

Edge Enhancement:
Sharpens movie images by providing higher contrast around lines and object

Integrated SD and HD TV Output
Provides world-class TV-out functionality via Composite, S-Video, Component, DVI, or HDMI connections. Supports resolutions up to 1080p depending on connection type and TV capability.

The Video Card:

Sparkle's 9800GT is much smaller than a full sized NVIDIA 9800GT that's based on the reference design.  Although it comes with a full sized bracket attached, the low profile bracket can easily be installed by removing the two bolts holding down the plate.  The heat sink and cooling fan unit is pretty tall and easily takes up two slots when installing it.

There is a 6-pin PCI-Express power connector on this side of the video card.  nVIDIA recommends a minimum of a 400 Watt power supply to power this card, with the +12v rail supplying a minimum of 26 Amps.

This S/PDIF port allows digital audio from your sound card to be routed through the HDMI port, so video and sound is possible through one cable.  This is useful if you have a HDTV or Receiver that has HDMI ports.

The rear of the card is pretty bare and standard.  Here, you can see that the card has a blue PCB.  Note that there is no SLI connector in this video card.  Perhaps it had to be omitted due to the low-profile bracket and its ability to fit into smaller computers

This secondary heat sink is for cooling the voltage rectifiers on this video card.

 

 

The rear of the card features an HDMI Port and a DVI-D port.  Both can be used at the same time for dual displays.

 

A size comparison between the low profile bracket and the regular bracket.

 

Cooling:

The Sparkle 9800GT HDMI features a surprisingly small cooling fan.  I thought it would be pretty whiny, but it turned out to be just as quiet as NVIDIA's reference design fan.  During testing, it never seemed to speed up, but the system never crashed nor did any artifacts or screen corruption show up.   On the next page, where I overclocked this card, the fan had to be cranked all the way up to 100%.  At full speed, this fan is quite noisy, but that is to be expected.

The heat sink is composed of a block of aluminum and thick fins.  I think the NVIDIA reference design cooler is better, but it wouldn't work well with this card's form factor.

Installation:

-Installation was easy and had no problems fitting inside a mid sized ATX case.

-Sparkle should have given the 9800GT HDMI a dual slot cooler, since it takes up two slots already.  By doing this, the card can exhaust its heat outside of the case and become more efficient.

Testing, Benchmarks and the Conclusion are on the next page.

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