EVGA's e-GeForce 9800GTX implementation is similar in every respect to the reference 9800GTX in design. The card is a two-slot solution requiring two adjacent open slots on a motherboard to install. The high end of the video card market is dominated by dual slot cards including the 9800GX2 and the HD3870X2 cards. The 9800GTX has a full-length enclosed cooler over the PCB.

The 9800GTX requires two 6-pin power connectors for extra power provided above the 75W that the PCI Express 1.0 bus provides to the video card. High end cards including the 8800GTX, Ultra, HD3870X2 and 9800GX2 have required two power connectors so this is not a new trend. One consequence of the power requirements is the need for SIX 6-pin power connectors for Tri-SLI.

The 9800GTX has 512MB of GDDR3 memory clocked at 1.1GHz or 2.2GHz effective. With a 256-bit memory bus, this equates to a memory bandwidth of 70.4GB/second. GDDR3 memory is used specifically for video cards and is not the same as the DDR3 memory that we are seeing on today's memory modules for the PC.

Two SLI bridges are on the top of the card, allowing three cards to run in Tri-SLI mode with the Tri-SLI bridge. One of the main additions to this card over the 8800GTS 512MB is the additional bridge. How well Tri-SLI will scale compared to a single 9800GTX or two 9800GTXs will have to wait for another review. For now, consider the 9800GTX a direct replacement for the 8800GTX/Ultra, meaning that Tri-SLI will not be a factor in most users' minds.