GeForce 9600 GT Hands-On Preview

By: Sarju Shah Posted on February 20, 2008

Nvidia released the GeForce 8 GPU series in late 2006 and reigned over the enthusiast graphics world essentially undisputed until AMD responded with the ATI Radeon HD 3800 series, all of which threaten the GeForce in more price-conscious segments. AMD's assaults on Nvidia's bread-and-butter midrange cards forced the GeForce-makers into action. The company's response to these new threats is the GeForce 9600 GT 512MB. With an MSRP close to $180, the GeForce 9600 GT 512MB slides into the mainstream category with some seriously great performance at an affordable price.

Gallery

The GeForce 9600 GT 512MB comes with 64 stream processors, double the number found in the GeForce 8600 GTS but not quite as many as in the original GeForce 8800 GTS 320MB. To make up for the shortfall in stream processors, Nvidia gave the GeForce 9600 GT quicker clock speeds, pairing the 650MHz core clock with a speedy 1.62GHz shader clock. The 512MB of GDDR3 memory has an effective speed of 1.8GHz. Nvidia states that the card uses 95W of power and recommends a 400W power supply for the standard GeForce 9600 GT 512MB.

	GeForce 9600 GT	GeForce 8800 GTS 320MB	GeForce 8600 GTS
Price	$169-$189	$220	$135
DirectX	DirectX 10, SM4	DirectX 10, SM4	DirectX 10, SM4
Core Speed	650MHz	500MHz	675MHz
Stream Processors	64	96	32
Shader Speed	1.62GHz	1.2GHz	1.45GHz
Memory	512MB	320MB	256MB
Memory Speed	900MHz (1.8GHz GDDR3)	800MHz (1.6GHz GDDR3)	1GHz (2GHz GDDR3)
Memory Interface	256-bit	320-bit	128-bit

Expect to see several GeForce 9600 GT 512MB variants out there, because video card manufacturers can adjust memory and GPU clock speeds to create premium models with higher prices.

The introduction of the GeForce 9600 GT 512MB does not bring with it a whole new architecture or feature set. However, according to Nvidia, the new GPU benefits from process and architectural improvements that allow it to handily outperform an equivalent older-model GeForce 8 GPU, and it also comes with compatibility for PCI Express 2.0.

The GeForce 9600 GT 512MB comes with the same accoutrements as other GeForce 8 series GPUs. You'll get the unified shader architecture, full DirectX 10 compatibility, as well as hardware accelleration and image-quality improvements for H.264 and VC-1 high-definition video content.

System Setup: Intel Core 2 Extreme QX9775, Intel D5400XS, 4GB FB-DIMM (2x2GB), 750GB Seagate 7200.10 SATA Hard Disk Drive, Windows Vista 32-bit. Graphics Cards: GeForce 8800 GT 512MB, GeForce 8600 GTS 256MB, GeForce 9600 GT 512MB, XFX GeForce 8800 GTS 320MB XXX, Radeon HD 3850 256MB, Radeon HD 3870 512MB, Radeon HD 2600 XT 256MB. Graphics Drivers: ATI Catalyst 8.2, Nvidia ForceWare beta 169.28, Nvidia Forceware beta 174.12.

Conclusion

The GeForce 9600 GT 512MB performs spectacularly for a card in the mainstream category. It thoroughly trounced prior-generation parts like the GeForce 8600 GTS and Radeon HD 2600 XT, outperformed the more expensive Radeon HD 3870 in Crysis and Call of Duty 4, and waltzed past the comparably priced Radeon HD 3850 in all of our tests. The GeForce 9600 GT didn't beat the GeForce 8800 GT 512MB card or XFX GeForce 8800 GTS 320MB XXX Edition, which is considerably more expensive and overclocked.

The competition in this price range is fierce, as ATI just announced price cuts for both of their competing GPUs. Choosing a video card got a little harder, as it depends on how the price war plays out. Regardless of card, you win. Lower prices and higher performance doesn't exactly hurt the consumer.

Editor's Note - We added the GeForce 8800 GT results to the preview. We also went back and retested the Radeon HD 3870 and Radeon HD 3850 in Call of Duty 4. Both test scores seemed low, but were repeatedly verified. We're attributing their reduced performance to the operating system.