Which is the better deal for me - 8600 GT vs 9600 GT

[hfxmike]

I had a BFG 8800 GT OC, but it was overkill for what I do - some gaming, but
mostly dual monitor graphics. ie: i'm not playing Crysis maxed out.

Now I am stuck running a 10 yr old voodoo 3 2000 and suffering from scroll lag.

Here are the best potential buys online :

http://www.directcanada.com/products/?sku=11610BD7693&vpn=256-P2-N758-TR&manufacture=EVGA
EVGA E-GEFORCE 8600GT Ssc Edition 684MHZ 256MB DDR3 PCI-E Dual DVI-I HDTV Out DIRECTX10 Video Card $100 total

or, for $30 more:

http://www.directcanada.com/products/?sku=10720BD2013&vpn=BFGE96512GTOCE&manufacture=BFG%20Technologies
Bfg Geforce 9600GT Oc 675MHZ 512MB 1.8GHZ DDR3 PCI-E Dual DVI-I Hdtv Out Video Card

or I could grab *something* off ebay, but $130 is my limit.

I know the 8600 sucks compared to the 9600, but the above is highly overclocked.

 

[aevm]

I'd get the 9600GT. The 8600GT is handicapped by only 256MB of RAM, and it has only half the stream processors of the 9600gt.

 

[jeremyrailton]

if you want good game performance, get 9600gt.

if you want cheap, get something like 2600xt
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814241064

thou shalt not buy the heavily overpriced 8600gt

then again, there's always the 8800gs (9600gso).
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130332
i played crysis on high with a 19" monitor with this card

 

[sisley_111]

to jeremyrailton :
the poster lives in Canada and newegg doesn't ship to Canada, too bad for us.

2600XT 512MB DDR3
http://www.esng.ca/productDetail.php?category=Video Cards&subcategory=&pid=734200032149&isid=6156

8600GT 512MB DDR3
http://www.a-power.com/product-5030

8800GS 384MB DDR3
http://www.esng.ca/productDetail.php?category=Video Cards&subcategory=&pid=719300033952&isid=7737

 

[night_wolf_in]

for gaming. the 9600GT is way much better than 8600GT.

 

[shadowthor]

Get the 9600GT.

 

[Maziar]

Definitely the 9600GT, its fat better

 

[Murissokah]

I wish the 8600gt was never released, so ppl wouldn't consider buying it. Also, when it comes to pc parts, especially VGA, I don't see how anything could be overkill for too long. My guess is you'll be wanting that 8800 back in 3 months.

 

[Guest]

8600GT never should've been released with that name. It implies that it is a decent mid range card when it was anything but that.

 

[Maziar]

Well 8600GT isnt very bad,its good for general use and for light-medium gaming but the 9600GT is a lot better

 

[jerreece]

9600 GT All day long. It's actually somewhat comparable to that 8800GT performance wise. Definitely wouldn't scrimp on getting the 8600.

Don't know what the rest of your system is, but that 9600GT would actually perform pretty decent with most modern games should you decide to play one.

 

[Nik_I]

as people have already said, the 8600GT's name doesn't do it justice. Compared to other x600 cards, it's significantly slower than the x800 cards in the same series. In fact, the 8600GT is roughly similar in performance to the 7600GT. The card is by no means a midrange card. so in short, just get the 9600GT, or if you wanna go ATI, look into the HD3650.

 

[hfxmike]

Thanks for all of the responses.
Forgot to mention that I'm in canada, and I've got an AMD 4200/2 gig/500W/ 2x19" CRTS @1600x1200 each.

Since the US and CDN are about the same now here are my choices:

EVGA 8600GT *SSC* (see above) $100
BFG 9600GT OC " " $130

I know that the 9600 is way better than the 8600, but I haven't been able to find very many decent benchmarks of EVGA's 8600, which is heavily overclocked.

I guess that I'd be happy with a card that would give good framerates (@ 1024x768) on 3d games from last year - and drive both of my monitors. I prefer NVidia.

Maybe I should just get a $60 dx 9 card. I had a 7900 GTX for a while and it was nice.

I can get a used 7800 GTX for $70 - total. And that's faster than the 8600GT - although I'm not sure it's faster than EVGA's SSC version.

Have just spent hours looking at cards, and I've decided to go low end on ebay - in the 7800gt - 7950gt range ($50 total).

I'm still curious to get thoughts on the 8600gt *SSC*.

 

[Guest]

even overclocked it still sucks... spend the extra thirty on the 9600 gt...

 

[itheral]

The SSC edition of the 8600gt is still slower than the 8600gts, and is MUCH slower than the 9600gt.

Also, even if you do prefer nvidia, NEVER go back to the 7-series cards. In some games the 8600gt/gts and HD2600/HD3650 spank the 7800gtx/7950gt/ and sometimes even the 7900gtx..

If you must go Nvidia, the only smart choices right now are 8800gs OR 9600gt

 

[KyleSTL]

9600GT is the way to go.

 

[theunknown145]

definately get the 96600gt

 

[Guest]

^ oooooo 96600 GT... I wanna get that card... where can you buy one?

 

[CLARDA]

get the 9600 hands down it blows the 8600 away

 

[Guest]

The 9600 is way better then the 8600. But lets clearify something. The 8600 is way better then the 7600. I have an 8600 gt with 512mb ram in one system. I have windows vista 64bit and 4gb patriot ram with a triple core phenom. I can play Stalker, Crysis, Dead Space and Fallout 3 with 1400x900 and most settings set to high with smooth framerate. Recently I heard a lot of people saying the 7600 wasn't much different. So I put a 7600 (same brand pny with 512mb ram) in the same machine (the 8600 is worth more so I thought sell it and use my old 7600). I had to turn settings down to medium / low and 1024 x 768 resolution and the game still lagged. The 8600 may not be the best card but it blows away the 7600, and it is a mid range card, my games still look better then xbox360 and ps3 with an 8600.

 

[merlinbadman]

One major difference between the two cards is that the 9600GT has a 256-bit memory interface while the the 8600GT only has a 128-bit memory interface.

The better the memory interface the more AA & AF you can use, regardless of onboard memory size.

 

[KyleSTL]

Seriously, this thread ended 7 months ago. Who's performing the seances to resurrect these dead threads?