Nvidia GeForce 9600GT Review
Posted by EL1TE on 14 January 2008 - 16:16 · 20 comments & 131248 views
The Hardware site PConline has posted an early review (in Chinese) of the upcoming GeForce 9600GT, the next mid-range graphic card from Nvidia. The system used was powered by an Intel QX6800(266×11) processor, a Gigabyte P38-DQ6 Motherboard, and 2GB DDR2 800 of Memory. The ForceWare 171.16 beta (which comes with support for the new card) was used to test the new GeForce 9600GT, while Catalyst 7.12 for Vista was used to test the Radeon HD3850. The tests consisted of 9 games (with all the settings on maximum quality) plus 3DMark06. Thankfully, there's no language barrier where it comes to FPS numbers!
Software Used:
  • 3DMark2006 Ver.110
  • Call Of Juarez (DX10)
  • Lost Planet: Extreme Condition
  • BIOSHOCK
  • Company Of Heroes Ver 1.70
  • Crysis (DX10)
  • Need for Speed 11
  • FEAR
  • Unreal Tournament 3 Demo
  • Colin McRae DiRT Ver: 1.1 (DX10)
GeForce 9600GT Specifications:
  • Core Clock: 650MHz
  • Shader Clock: 1625MHz
  • Memory Clock:1800MHz
  • Memory Type: GDDR3
  • Memory interface: 256Bit
  • Memory capacity: 512MB
  • Stream Processor Unit / Unified shader number: 64
  • Standard Shader Model: 4.0
  • Standard DirectX Version: 10
  • Video playback technology: PureVideo HD II/VP2
  • Interface: PCIe 2.0
Screenshot: 3DMark06 Test
Screenshot of Game Tests: BIOSHOCK | Company of Heroes | Call of Juarez | Crysis | Lost Planet | NFS: Pro Street | DiRT | FEAR | Unreal Tournament 3 Demo
View: Review (in Chinese)


There are 20 additional comments
Advertisement
(3 replies) Quote this comment Reply to this comment #1 Posted by Ikshaar on 14 Jan 2008 - 16:40
a mid-range card which performed like previous mid-range card... /yawn
Quote this comment #1.1 Posted by WICKO on 14 Jan 2008 - 16:50
Err, what? Did you even look at the benchmarks? It beat the 8600 GTS, roughly the top of the current mid range, by almost double in most benchmarks. It even beat the 8800GS (which I haven't heard of, assuming its inbetween the 8800GT 512MB and 256MB versions, or something) here and there.

Last edited by WICKO on 14 Jan 2008 - 16:52
Quote this comment #1.2 Posted by EL1TE on 14 Jan 2008 - 16:58
Quote - (WICKO said @ #1.1)
Err, what? Did you even look at the benchmarks? It beat the 8600 GTS, roughly the top of the current mid range, by almost double in most benchmarks. It even beat the 8800GS (which I haven't heard of, assuming its inbetween the 8800GT 512MB and 256MB versions, or something) here and there.


Actually the Mid-range card is the Radeon HD3850, and from Nvidia will come the 8800 GS
Quote this comment #1.3 Posted by WICKO on 14 Jan 2008 - 17:02
I consider the 8800 and 3800 series high end, and the 8600 and 3600/2600 (if there are any 3600 series) mid. 8400 and 2400/3400 being low end. 8800, because of the price point when it was first released, was kind of the odd one out I guess. performed at high end, but lower price. Mid-high range, we'll call it, lol

3800 prices are a result of AMD's desperation, IMO.

Last edited by WICKO on 14 Jan 2008 - 17:05
(2 replies) Quote this comment Reply to this comment #2 Posted by Thrawn on 14 Jan 2008 - 16:47
Well, it looks like it won't perform any miracles in Crysis. It plays crysis on high, 12x10, no AA, 27 frames. It totally kills an 8600GT and hurts an ATI HD3850. Let me think, I'd pay $120 for this card. Otherwise, an 8800GT looks better at twice that price.

PS: Google translate makes all this readable-ish: http://www.google.com/translate_t Just paste in the URL you want, and choose Chinses->English, whatever.
Also, I'm sure more reviews will pop up in a few days.

Last edited by Thrawn on 14 Jan 2008 - 16:48
Quote this comment #2.1 Posted by WICKO on 14 Jan 2008 - 16:56
Keep in mind that the Crysis benchmark is using DX10.. so those benches aren't too bad. Close to my 8800GT i think. Not sure if thats on High or Very High (not medium though, thats way too low for medium).
Quote this comment #2.2 Posted by Thrawn on 14 Jan 2008 - 17:01
Humn... I guess that's true, it does seem pretty good if it's running DX10. The translated site says its on High methinks, any they're running the Crysis demo, so no Crysis 1.1.
(2 replies) Quote this comment Reply to this comment #3 Posted by +Kushan on 14 Jan 2008 - 17:01
Not a bad card by any means, I just wish the high-end card of this generation wasn't just two previous generation cards stuck together.
I'm not sure if I should blame nvidia's lack of effort or ATI's lack of competitiveness.
Quote this comment #3.1 Posted by Chicane-UK on 14 Jan 2008 - 17:09
This sort of stuff goes in cycles. I just forsee Nvidia getting lazy, and ATI catching them off guard a few generations from now. Its almost too like the Intel/AMD battles of recent years!
Quote this comment #3.2 Posted by OblivionStalker on 14 Jan 2008 - 17:32
Quote - (Kushan said @ #3)
Not a bad card by any means, I just wish the high-end card of this generation wasn't just two previous generation cards stuck together.
I'm not sure if I should blame nvidia's lack of effort or ATI's lack of competitiveness.


We have yet to see how will nvidia make the high-end cards. There is still time to add DX10.1 support and improve the clock and other things...
Quote this comment Reply to this comment #4 Posted by Amano on 14 Jan 2008 - 17:25
Oh, that's fantastic. Simply it's NVIDIA!
Quote this comment Reply to this comment #5 Posted by daniel_rh on 14 Jan 2008 - 17:42
Nothing bad! those benchmarks looks pretty good!
Quote this comment Reply to this comment #6 Posted by Imnotrichey on 14 Jan 2008 - 18:32
I wish they would of put the 8800 GT and 3870 in there just for comparison. Whats the price point supposed to be for the 9600 GT? $150 sounds about right to me
Quote this comment Reply to this comment #7 Posted by +J400uk on 14 Jan 2008 - 18:39
So the 9600GT, "8800GS" and 256 8800GT all perform very similary with the 8800gt winner at low res and 9600gt best at high. Wonder how nvidia will differntiate between them. Will also be interesting to see how the new so called ati mid range 3xxx card compares.

Last edited by J400uk on 14 Jan 2008 - 18:40
(1 reply) Quote this comment Reply to this comment #8 Posted by WAR-DOG on 15 Jan 2008 - 07:48
the 9600GT will perform even better with new drivers
Quote this comment #8.1 Posted by Jugalator on 15 Jan 2008 - 13:55
That's only speculation.

You know, I used to believe in this too, but I've started to doubt NVIDIA in this lately.

Sure, maybe there might be minor improvements overall, but I don't know really... I didn't see any mind blowing improvements as for e.g. DX10 performance on the Geforce 8's during 2007 anyway. I think even the original benchmarks are fairly indicative of where the card is heading.

Last edited by Jugalator on 15 Jan 2008 - 13:57
Quote this comment Reply to this comment #9 Posted by always-midrange on 23 Jan 2008 - 22:24
ati 3xxx is nothing as compared to 9600gt cuz 9600gt beats 3850..
remind that 8800gt has already a 9 series chip
1 very good thing on ati cards is they're extremely well overclockable.. nvidia's arent
but guys.. look at this SWEET benchmarks.. I was ready to buy a 8600gt (current 7600gs) but now i see a mid ranger that beats some prev hi-end cards.. if it can play crysis at my res. @27 fps and bioshock @66.. it can do some serious futurework too.
I'm gonna buy this one and add a +- 30$ cooler and overclock with coolbits to the limits.. simple way to beet 8800gt(
Quote this comment Reply to this comment #10 Posted by Divinebaboon on 25 Jan 2008 - 02:32
ok I'm gonna do my best to translate this...sorry if my grammar suck.
1.Intro
Even though the 8800GT has a good money-to-performance ratio, the cost of it is still to high for average gamers (1900Yuan)，But, even in this high range video card category, Ati got nothing on Nvidia. Still,2000+Yuan video cards are not the mainstream popular items in the chinese market. Most ppl onl ycare about the 1000 ~ 1999 yuan mid range video cards. And nvidia doesnt have alot to offer in that category. Ati on the other hand,has Radeon HD3850. To make up for its weakness in the mid range card market, nvidia send out 8800GT 256MB and 8800GS. Still, the 256mb GT sucks in higher resolution and the 8800GS is just a delaying tatic to hold off ATI until back-up arrives. Now, msot of yous probablly know, nvidia will release G94 chip with DX10 support on valentine's day, alogn with 9600GT. Today, one month away from valentines day, us at pconline test labs used our "connections and influence" and finally got a hold of the G94 9600GT. How will it compare to the Radeon HD3850、GeForce 8800GS and GeForce 8600GTS?Let's find out.
Quote this comment Reply to this comment #11 Posted by Divinebaboon on 25 Jan 2008 - 02:38
2. G94 chip internal specs
According to the name,the G94 chip will surpass the 8 series(no duh). And the cards with the number 6 in its name ahve been hot buys here in china from the 6600GT,7600GT,to the 8600GT. So we can safely assume that the future of 9600GT will be very bright. (insert fancy chart here) Now, According "reliable sources", the chip uses 65nm technology. It has 2 stream processor, doubling the G84 chip's. It will be a good match against Radeon HD3850. Just like G92 chips,G94 supports 256bit memory, and H 264(no idea what that is). It stil lsupports DirectX 10 and shader model 4.0. Seems like nvidia is not that eager to make DX10.1 cards yet.
Quote this comment Reply to this comment #12 Posted by Divinebaboon on 25 Jan 2008 - 03:10
3 is about the sizing tof the chip,nothing to translate there.
4. Appearence
from the looks of it GeForce 9600GT and GeForce 8800GTare similar,using cooling devices from CoolerMaster，comapred to GeForce 8800GT, GeForce 9600GThas bigger fan opening. 　Geforce 9600GTuses DDR3 memopry from samsung，response time is 1.0ns，each memory module is 512Mbit * 32bit，has 8 modules，GeForce 9600GT memory clock is 1800Mhz。
5.Test computer specs..nothing much to translate.they just wanted to use quad core cpu and huge monitor.
6.3DMark06 just formulas and graphs.
7.Bioshock
The testing scene we picked was the first auto save point, "welcome to rapture" We use fraps to get the fps. (see graph)
8. Company of heroes,just read the screens.
9. Call Of Juarez see above
10. Crysis: If Farcry is the reason why DX9 became popular, then crysis is the Farcry for DX10.
11. Lost planet: see screens
12. NFS Pro Street: see screens
13.Dirt see screen
14. Fear (note:if a system doesnt have enough memory to run under this resolution,the score will be a 0)
15.Unreal tournament 3 see screens.
16. Conclusion:
Ok, now after you saw what the new card can do,let's wrap it up.According to the benchmarks, 9600GT is a true successor to the 8600GTs, out performing it 90% of the time, and so it def has the goods to compete against HD3850.Only in NFS pro street where 9600 and HD3850 came close,other times 9600 is just plain better than HD3850, all thanks to the 512MB of memory.
Alot of people worry about the 9600's compatibility with the upcoming DX10.1. From what we hear,96000 wont be able to support DX10.1. But still,only a handful of games in the market can successfully utilize DX10, DX10.1 is just too much for now. according to sources, the 9600GT will cost 169 USD, or 1299 Yuan. Coincidentally, this was the price of 8600 when it first came out. 8800GTS dominates the 2000+ yuan market,while 8800GT dominates the 1500~2000 range. With the arrival of HD3850, 8600GTS got kicked out of the 1000~1500 market. With the upcoming 9600GT however,the 1000~1500 market will be owned by nvidia yet again.

phew.that was my hasty translation lol.sorry i cant do better,i have school tomorrow,gotta go sleep. bye~~ hope my translation help out a lil.
[1]

Commenting has either been disabled on this article or you are not logged in. Click here to login or register, its free!

Note: Anonymous commenting is disabled in order to keep the quality of responses to a high standard.


Scroll to the Top
....
My Preferences
....
Communicating with server
Loading
Please Wait...
....
Loading
 X 
....