Four GeForce 9600 GT Cards Compared

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[citation][nom]warezme[/nom]warms my heart to see the old 8800GTX included in this test list. It's amazing this ancient cards at default speed still sit in the middle of the pack and quickly rise to the top when you turn up AA and texture quality up, beating most every other card cept for 260GTX and SLI and CF rigs.It also explains why a pair of old 8800GTX's in SLI OC'ed to at least Ultra speeds on a fast rig are still very hard to out perform by any single card (period)[/citation]
Mate, two 8800GT's in sli beat every single gpu card out there (scream at the 4870X2 :O). 8800GTX isn't the only one...
 
Hrm,

This seems like something you do when you have `nothing' to do. Who cares about the 9600 series card. My god. Who cares about any of the 9's other than the 9800's? And who the hell cares about getting a passively cooled card and then overclocking it? Seriously. Why the hell would anyone want 1gig or 2gigs of ram on these boards? It does nothing significant and the ram costs more than the damn card's gpu does.

Benchmark cards people care about! People buying budget cards don't need to see reviews and overlocking results. They don't care unless it's a race to see who can get the `old junk' to run better. Leave that to the overclocker website clubs for a challenge. Not a main site article.

Cheers,
 
[citation][nom]malveaux[/nom]Who cares about the 9600 series card.[/citation]
Those of us not swimming in disposable income and/or who stopped receiving an allowance years ago.
The two most important products to a GPU manufacturer are the fastest model it can produce and the model with the best price/performance ratio. If the fastest GPU on the market is under your brand, you earn prestige and investment capital, but your sales revenue come from budget cards like the 9600GT. Therefore, it is no surprise the 9600GT is a great value in terms of performance for its price. Benchmarks are important for all levels of hardware so we keep up with evolving technologies and games.

[citation][nom]Noya[/nom]You guys need to start posting street/rebate prices.[/citation]
Prices change so quickly that the prices would be useless in as little as a couple weeks. Also, it takes time to stay on top of store-specific bargains, so if Toms Hardware articles do begin including prices I expect they will contain catagories ($100-$150 category, for example) rather than specific prices. Even so, I would like to see them next time; if they don't want to include store prices, making the manufacturer's pricing clear would be nice.


 
Interesting test, but this is the second time I've seen such crappy results for the ATI's in Flight Simulator. Does anybody out there know why? The previous test I read used older drivers, but the 8.8 driver doesn't seem to help any...
 
[citation][nom]warezme[/nom]warms my heart to see the old 8800GTX included in this test list. It's amazing this ancient cards at default speed still sit in the middle of the pack and quickly rise to the top when you turn up AA and texture quality up, beating most every other card cept for 260GTX and SLI and CF rigs.It also explains why a pair of old 8800GTX's in SLI OC'ed to at least Ultra speeds on a fast rig are still very hard to out perform by any single card (period)[/citation]

Yep, I just "upgraded" from 8800 GTX SLI to GTX 260 SLI, and I went from rock stable to random crashes at odd times. Crysis is nicer at 1920 X 1200 with 2AA, though.
 
What is the problem here? I own a 9600GT, got it about 8 months ago as it had the best price/performance/heat balance at the time, as I'm sure others did, sure I would get a different card if I made the choice today, probably a 4850 but I can't afford that. It is good to find out the best upgrade option for me right now is a second 9600GT in SLI rather than a far more expensive single-slot current generation card. On this basis reviews of what some derisively call 'budget' or 'obsolete' hardware are of value to all of us.

As for the suggestion that 'People buying budget cards don't need to see reviews and overclocking results' WTH?? It is exactly people with a budget that need to see these reviews and overclocking reviews. I don't need a review to go out and buy the fastest (and most expensive) hardware out there - I could do that easily if I had more money than sense - I need reviews like this that can tell me the best bang-for-your-buck upgrade.

Nice review, I'm sure others out there with older ATI hardware would appreciate this kind of info too.

Stuart
 
The problem with this article is that it's covering graphics cards released literally MONTHS ago that have already been reviewed. And yet, here we are with a new card being released (the HD 4670), and is it included anywhere? Even reviewed by Toms at all? Nope. Instead we get re-reviews of nearly year-old nvidia parts.

Am I missing something here?
 
[citation][nom]Granite3[/nom][/citation]

A pair of 8800GTX's OC'ed and in SLI is just Old School Magic and still give them fancy new cards the middle finger..., LOL!
 
[citation][nom]Sus-penders[/nom]Why would anyone get an 8800GTS for $179 when you can buy a better performing HD 4850, for LESS money??? ATIati still exists, you know...[/citation]

The same reason people bought P4's over Athlon 64's. Come on, do you honestly think that LOGIC and REASON play into the minds of a fanboy?
 
[citation][nom]los anonymous[/nom]And why are they reviewing these ancient cards again? re-review to put nvidia back to the spotlights again because the haven't got any new hardware.[/citation]

Ancient? Lol, chill out man. I got a 2 8800GT's (akimbo versions) that beat the brakes of any game I play.

You don't get it do you? Not everyone cares about playing Crysis on a 30-inch monitor. Most people don't play brand new games fully maxed out, and most people don't have the money (or need) for a new card every 5-8 months.
 
Heya,

When a 9800gt can be had for $109, why in the world is anyone talking about "rich people" and their great new cards, when it's old tech, but still way better than a 9600. And for those people talking about their little $50 budget to buy a card with, why do they have an SLI capable motherboard to begin with? People pay that much for a game. Paying $100 or $150 for a videocard that will run their favorite games for several years is a better deal.

SLI is not something people on a budget should be doing in the first place. It's not like you can get SLI and go high res and full settings and not need a good beefy CPU and other things behing it to make sure it can actually get fed enough to fuel your graphics.

Very best,
 
Im not sure what all the commotion is about.

A) The 4850 only beats the 8800GTS in certain apps. Which means its not better unless you only run certain apps. That's a pathetic "victory" for a card 2 generations newer.

B) Over at newegg.com I just saw 8800GTS-512 for $160 BEFORE mail-in rebate of $20. Making it the cheapest of the ~$175 range cards. So if a person was going to up their GPU budget from $100, wouldn't every dollar count?

***

I think the ATi cabana boys are just upset because this review brings back into the limelight the fact that ATi LOST, and LOST HORRIBLY, for the two generations preceding this one.

That and the fact the Gf-8xxx series was INTENDED to COMPETE with the Rd-2xxx series!!!
 
"A) The 4850 only beats the 8800GTS in certain apps. Which means its not better unless you only run certain apps. That's a pathetic "victory" for a card 2 generations newer."

The $199 HD 4850 (when released) instantly made the $300 9800GTX a $200 card overnight. Even Nvidia saw the cards power and it's merits. I think that tells me all I need to know. My advice; read more reviews.
 
got asus 9600 gt silent and got heated very high,playing call of duty 4
it gooes up to 94C ,i added 4 silent fan at the bottom and noe it runs below 40, realy great card for the performance
 
For those of you who don't like the article:
1. why did you read it?
2. not everybody buys always the latest graphic cards. For them (like me) it was a great help, because now I know which is the best buy to boost up my old machine to still be able to play without investing too much. Loads of casual gamers are not spending fortunes every year on their PCs. It is not a bad article, it is not written for you. It is IQ question to understand this. Relax guys. Thanx for the piece, man!
 
This 9600 gt card hit the sweetspot a while ago, I'm very happy with my MSI 9600 OC edition. It's better than the MSI silent reviewed here. It has better performance thanks to the OC but it remains under 55 degrees at all times. Good card if you like to spend money on other things than hardware, it plays everything and a 300 watt power supply is enough.

 
The temps here seem quite pessimistic. I've just bought the Asus 9600gt with the passive cooling and it sits at 45C without load. An hour playing Farcry 2 raises it to 60C. It could be the placement of my fan - it sucks air over the heat sink and out of the case - but I can't imagine it getting to 100C unless you really give it no circulation whatsoever.
 
[citation][nom]demonhorde665[/nom]i dont see why every one is dumping on this article, 1. not every one is rich enough to buy the latest hardware , however , some one might be able to afoord 1 or two of these bad babys. you look any where on teh web and you will see this card going for 100 - 110 US dollars at many diferent web sites for the budget gamer wanting to Run SLI and actully see good perfomance , ther just isnt a better choice since you can grap two of these puppies for 200 -220 Dollars (the 8800 gt for tow would still run 130 - 260) when you get on the budget 40 dollars is a big deal/ I have only one of these boards (i only ahve one slot for pci-e) and just one of these alone can run cyrsis rather respefuly (high -very high setting at 1280x1024 with 30-40 fps) I'm sure two would do a bit better. infact i ahvent sen anew game yet that compeltely ears my 9600 gt down.[/citation]
Ummm, yeah they just want their e-fantasy personal emotional trip high fufilled... they can grunt and ewww and awww and make their mommy and sister sick listening to them if they just have some special K.A. review to gawk about...
Funny thing is the other cards have already been reviewed, too.
If they talk smack and trash, it makes them feel like they know something, and have, instead of an empty mind, a comforted little inner child that tried to play big shot as a nobody on the internet, again.
PS - no scoffing at the 9600 sli marks, took near #1 a couple of times - so the whining red fanfairies can piss and moan some more and play in their sourpuss puddle.
 
[citation][nom]Sus-penders[/nom]"A) The 4850 only beats the 8800GTS in certain apps. Which means its not better unless you only run certain apps. That's a pathetic "victory" for a card 2 generations newer."The $199 HD 4850 (when released) instantly made the $300 9800GTX a $200 card overnight. Even Nvidia saw the cards power and it's merits. I think that tells me all I need to know. My advice; read more reviews.[/citation]
That's nice, the price/competition, but it doesn't negate what the other fella said. 4850's are lower than 9800GTX's now for a reason... all the redfairy hype wore off, and the reality of no 2560 monitor in front of fanfairies took hold... not to mention the heat output, and the tiny FRYING and burning up cores... bye bye "new technology ati" - spanked by 2 year old NVidia TWIMTBP...
LOL - That's the sad truth - ati fanfairies sound like rabid lefty pols spewing their lies and venom - NO, NV doesn't need new tech in the mid segment - it's still two years ahead of ATI - who crashed AMD again, for a near billion dollar loss write off - with only 381 million in sales....
CCC, no cuda, flaking drivers, finger burning heatsinks, 70C + gaming temps, no game CF force, no on the fly game config - on and on the list goes- no PhysX ....
AMD lost 3 billion too - ATI might just die - I guess there is a reason for lying fanfairies...
 
The Calibre P960 gbox (9600gt) which I am currently using blows the doors off of every other 9600 gt on the market as well as my Evga GTX 260 OC . It actually has just about 3x the overclocking ability than the GTX 260. This card is insane. My neighbor just bought a GTX 460 oc2 and he is wondering why my older Calibre p960 is absolutely destroying his card in all bench marks.
 
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