First 9600GT review

[DeathReborn]

Tweaktown have put a Galaxy 9600GT against a 8800GT & a 3870 and it looks like it does well.

TweakTown 9600GT review

Final Thoughts
The 9600GT doesn’t disappoint at all. Performance is better than you would expect out of a card that carries the x600GT naming scheme, and if pricing is going to be as competitive as we’ve heard then this could be the next gen card to own. It could be a really good chance for 7900 users to finally jump to a cheap DX10 card that is actually capable of running DX10 games at a playable frame rate.

Pricing should come under the HD 3870 and well under the 8800GT. While the card tends to perform on par with the HD 3870, sometimes better and sometimes slightly worse, with the great success NVIDIA has been having over the past few years people simply feel more comfortable using an NVIDIA card instead of an ATI based one. NVIDIA also tend to partner up with more game companies it seems, meaning that ultimately newer games are made for NVIDIA and able to perform better on their cards.

[grimREEFER]

wow better than the 3870.
no sm4.1 on the 9 series, thats a surprise.
if it overclocks well, it might outperform an 8800gt

[LagunaX]

Uses almost as much power as a 8800gt 512mb.
Impressive, on par with or beats the 3870 in a lot of areas.
If this comes out in the $150-200 range then it will sell like hotcakes...

[grimREEFER]

those 64 stream processors are testifying in congress next week. they've been accused of steroid use.

[[XC] gomeler]

I might have to buy one of these simply to bench/beat up.

[Jowy Atreides]

wow, as soon as stock prices are realised on this card I'll free upgrade from a 3850

this will be my 4th free card

[ANP !!!]

Wow, What and impressive card, it even beats the 8800GT in some games, and 12k 3d'06 for a Mid-Range card ?? I wonder how much more powerful the 9800GTX will be .?

[OCZ«]

Looks it's just like with the 7 and 8 series, 7900 is a bit better then the 8600GT/GTS.
And now it's 8800GT a bit better then 9600GT

[xlink]

how does it OC? the 3870s have head room, does this?

[Millyons]

it says right in the conclusion that is a factory OCed card, meaning it is not neccesarly better than 3870

[Starscream]

on page 18 it says in idle it makes more noise then under load.

Fan control not working properly?

[whocaresbg]

9600GT~HD3870 without AA+AF .

[Aleki]

wow, if this card is already competing well against last years highend, i wonder how much of a whooping the 9800gtx is gonna dish out

[v_rr]

Using old Cat 7.1 + using 9600GT OC + using HD 3870/8800GT non-OC.
Don´t suport DX_10.1 is just Lame.

Sis suport DX_10.1 ....

[3NZ0]

Using old Cat 7.1 + using 9600GT OC + using HD 3870/8800GT non-OC.
Don´t suport DX_10.1 is just Lame.

Sis suport DX_10.1 ....

Yeah, no support for DX10.1 is just plain unacceptable!


All those games that use it right now are being wasted!

oh wait........


Seems like a really good card, I hope it's priced well. nvidia will kill its selling point if they charge loads for it.

[aznsniper911]

Does anyone know the MSRP for these things?

[AliG]

I think completely proves a major reason for the 8800gt being a stronger game performer than the 3870 is massively due to the way the games were coded, I mean think about it. In theory, the 8800gt should be performing around 40% better than the 9600gt due to shader counts etc, but 9600gt is right on the 8800gt's tail. Of course the g94 die may be designed to perform more efficiently, but I'm pretty sure it's mainly due to game coding

[[XC] gomeler]

Price it at $140 and it'll sell like crazy. Price it at $180 and people will probably buy a 3850 or cheap 8800GT instead. It'll be tricky but this card could bring back the x600GT range from the 6600GT(which I thought was a fun card).

[ghost101]

Wow. Now i really want to see how a 9800gtx with 128 shaders fairs.

[Tonucci]

What an great card. I never expected this kind of performance. Looking at its specs I thought it would lie between 8600GTS and 8800GT, never so close to 8800GT.

Despite being named as an 9 series card, is it based on "g80 arch" ?

On a side note, power consumption doesnt make sense to me, with its specs it should be quite a bit lower than the 8800GT, and not almost match it. Lets wait for more reviews.

Depending on its price it could steal the HD38xx market.

[NH|Delph1]

Does anyone know the MSRP for these things?

$169-189. You didn't hear it from me.

//Andreas

[v_rr]

I think completely proves a major reason for the 8800gt being a stronger game performer than the 3870 is massively due to the way the games were coded, I mean think about it. In theory, the 8800gt should be performing around 40% better than the 9600gt due to shader counts etc, but 9600gt is right on the 8800gt's tail. Of course the g94 die may be designed to perform more efficiently, but I'm pretty sure it's mainly due to game coding

Despite have 40% less shaders it doesn´t have one 40% smaller die.
In fact 9600GT die size is very big for it´s segment. ATI HD 3800 continue to have a lot small core, witch means a less expensive chip to manufacter.

[Jakko]

Using old Cat 7.1 + using 9600GT OC + using HD 3870/8800GT non-OC.
Don´t suport DX_10.1 is just Lame.

Sis suport DX_10.1 ....

Did you guys also notice how the author of the article stresses how "most people" are more comfortable with nvidia hardware these days?
The article seems somewhat biased, what do you all think?

[DeathReborn]

Using old Cat 7.1 + using 9600GT OC + using HD 3870/8800GT non-OC.
Don´t suport DX_10.1 is just Lame.

Sis suport DX_10.1 ....

Despite have 40% less shaders it doesn´t have one 40% smaller die.
In fact 9600GT die size is very big for it´s segment. ATI HD 3800 continue to have a lot small core, witch means a less expensive chip to manufacter.

And the threadcrapping begins...

DX10.1 & SM4.1 are right now nothing but words on paper & PR speak. Save that lame duck of an excuse for when there's even a single DX10.1 game on the market.

nVidia managed to double the performance of the 8600GTS with the 9600GT without increasing the price which in anyones book is a good thing.

For the $150-200 the stock to OC cards will cost it's proving to be more than a match for the 38x0's especially when they can expose AMD's poor AA performance. nVidia's performance is causing AMD to lower prices so they can compete which is not a good thing for AMD.

[Nicksterr]

Did you guys also notice how the author of the article stresses how "most people" are more comfortable with nvidia hardware these days?
The article seems somewhat biased, what do you all think?

I think that's a fair assessment, considering AMD/ATI's publicity this year.