ECS 9800GTX+ SLI HYDRA EDITION

ECS sent us a huge box, 9800GTX+ HYDRA EDITION! We put the system to a series of benchmarking tests, temperature monitoring and also attempt to overclocking the GPUs.

When we are talking about graphics cards, some of the well known brands like Asus, EVGA, XFX and MSI comes to the picture. ECS too trying to break into the foray of the enthusiasts market by coming out with this water-cooled card. It certianly has made an visual impact on us with that huge box and defining Hydra logo. Let us see if ECS will be as good as it looks with 9800GTX+ SLI and the watercooling system provided.

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We will review the ECS 9800GTX+ through various test methods.

1. 7 Benchmark tests
2. Recording the IDLE and LOAD temperatures
3. Overclocking GPU and running selective benchmark test

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We will be using the 7 different benchmark tests as below:-

• 3DMark 06
• 3DMark Vantage
• F.E.A.R (In game benchmark test)
• Devil May Cry 4 (In game benchmark test)
• Far Cry 2 (In game benchmark test)
• Crysis (Crysis Benchmark Tool)
• Crysis Warhead (Framebuffer Crysis Benchmarking Tool)

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• Each test will be carried out with the same CPU frequency.
• CPU will be overclocked to 4.0 Ghz to attempt to resolve bottleneck issues.
• GPUs used in this test will be maintained at their stock/factory settings or the same overclocked settings.
• Benchmarking process is carried out in an air-conditioned room maintained at 24 degrees celcius.
• All graphs are plotted using the average FPS (frames per second) for each test.