Review: The fastest 9600GT

EVGA has four 9600 GT series cards and it was generous enough to let us have a go at the fastest one. This card's GPU is clocked at 740MHz and it's currently the fastest out of the box OCed 9600 GT on the market. As we've said, EVGA has three more 9600 GT cards in its offer, depending on how much cash you're willing to cough up. There's the reference 9600 GT at 650MHz, the 9600 GT Superclocked at 675MHz and the KO version clocked at 700MHz.

The memory on the SSC card runs at a high 1950MHz, 150MHz over the reference 1800MHz. Shader clock was also bumped up to 1835MHz. Although it sports much higher clocks than the reference card, EVGA's SSC is still pretty much a reference design.

EVGA chose to stick to Nvidia's stock cooler on this card. As we've already tested several 9600 GT cards we can say that this is not a bad choice, as even the stock cooler has enough muscle to cool the G94 GPU and it's quiet, too. It's a single slot design, similar to the one used on 8800 GT cards. It has a copper base, copper heatpipe, while the fins are aluminum. We measured an idle temperature of 46°C and under load it went up to 68°C. The temperatures are similar to those measured on other 9600 GT cards, but they are a couple of degrees higher, thanks to the overclocked core. The fan spun up to 53 percent of its maximum speed but it was still very quiet.

The G94 GPU is a 65nm part and its architecture is similar to that of the G92, which is the heart of 8800GT and GTS(G92) cards. Thanks to this, the price/performance ratio is very good and the 9600GT is placed somewhere between the 8600 series and the 8800 GT cards. It's supposed to be a replacement for the 8600 series, but it's a much more serious card than any 8600.

With its 64 stream processors, the G9600 GT has twice the firepower of the 8600 GT with 32 stream processors. For comparison, the latest incarnation of the 8800 GTS has 128 stream processors. With its 256-bit memory interface the 9600 GT offers much more bandwidth than the previous 128-bit 8600 generation and it performs almost twice as well as the 8600.

With less Shader processors the G94 is much smaller than the G92, reducing the surface area of the chip, the number of transistors, TDP and ultimately the price.

The card requires additional power via a 6-pin PCIe power connector which is easily accessible. The good thing about the 9600 GT is HDMI support through an adapter. In order to get the sound to the HDMI out you will have to connect a small S/PDIF cable to the card. The black S/PDIF pinhead connector is placed left of the SLI connector on the card.

Since the introduction of the 9600 GT, things have heated up in the mainstream market segment. We've already seen that the 8800 GT is still a bit faster, but the Radeon HD3870 is a very close match, both in terms of performance and price. It's really not an easy choice to make.

Nvidia's Geforce 9600 GT is a DirectX 10 card with Shader Model 4.0 OpenGL2.1 and PCI Express 2.0 support. It has two DVI dual link outs as well as an S-Video/HDTV out. The second generation Pure Video HD engine is supposed to provide high picture and video quality.

The box is pretty much standard, but we really don't understand why EVGA didn't emphasize the card's 740MHz clock in the design. True, an enthusiast will know that this is a highly overclocked SSC card, but many consumers will have no idea that this is the highest clocked 9600 GT on the market. No games are bundled with the card.







EVGA's 9600 GT SSC is a top notch card and it offers much more than the previous 8600 generation. Therefore, we compared it to several other 9600 GT cards to see the impact of higher clocks on performance.

Testbed

Motherboard:
EVGA 680i SLI (Ustupio EVGA)

Processor:
Intel Core 2 Duo 6800 Extreme edition (Ustupio Intel)

Memory:
OCZ FlexXLC PC2 9200 5-5-5-18  (Ustupio OCZ)
        na testu CL5-5-5-15-CR2T 1066MHz at 2.2V

PSU:
OCZ Silencer 750 Quad Black ( Ustupio OCZ)

Hard disk:
Seagate Barracuda 7200.9 80GB SATA (Ustupio Seagate)

CPU-Cooler:
Freezer 7 Pro (Ustupio Artic Cooling)

Case Fans:
Artic Cooling - Artic Fan 12 PWM
Artic Cooling - Artic Fan 8 PWM

Futuremark tests



In 3Dmark06 the EVGA 9600 SSC is a mere 3 percent slower than a reference 8800GT. A reference clocked 9600 GT, on the other hand, is around 12 percent slower. Althugh the core on EVGA's SSC has a 14 higher clock than the reference card's, the performance is 9 percent higher.

Games



F.E.A.R. loved Zotac's 9600 GT with 1000MHz memory and 700MHz clock. EVGA and MSI have higher clocked cores (740MHz and 730MHz), but their memory clock is 975MHz. XFX runs on 700MHz core and 1000MHz memory. F.E.A.R. performed best on the core/memory clock combination of Zotac's card. The Geforce 9600GT outperforms ATI's Radeon HD3870 in this particular test.

EVGA shows its teeth against other 9600 GT cards and scores highest. The biggest difference is in lower resolutions, while on higher ones the margin gets a bit smaller. We can see that the increased GPU clock gets a better score and EVGA's SSC is about 10 percent faster than the reference clocked card at any resolution.



Crysis is playable up to 1600x1200. AA and AF on that resolution are a bit too much for the G94 GPU, but the same goes for all cards in our chart. Only a lower detail setting will allow you to enjoy Crysis in a resolution higher than 1600x1200. ATI doesn't do well in this game, especially in the Antialiasing deparment.

The overclocked 9600 GT cards running 700MHz or 740MHz score about the same in World in Conflict. All overclocked cards score from 11 to 15 percent more than the reference 9600 GT.




Conclusion

Nvidia's Geforce 9600 GT is quite a painful pill for Radeon HD3870 cards. It has a good price/performance ratio and Nvidia's new mid-range product proves to be more than a good choice in this price segment. EVGA's SSC is currently the fastest 9600 GT on the market, with a core overclocked all the way up to 740MHz.

It easily beats other 9600 GT cards thanks to its high clocks, apart from the core's 740MHz; let's not forget the Shaders, which are clocked at 1835MHz and memory at 975MHz (1950MHz effective). The card is a reference design and we have no complaints about its cooler. It's effective, quiet even during gaming and it takes up just one slot.

However, the Geforce 9600 GT is not as powerful as the 8800 GT, which is just €20 more expensive. On the other hand, the 9600 GT is easily comporable to the HD3870 and the prices are close, too, so both ATI and Nvidia lovers now have a choice in this price segment.

EVGA's 9600GT SSC is priced at €190, and while it is the fastest 9600 GT on the market, it's also one of the most expensive ones. Considering that you can now get EVGA's 8800 GT for the same cash, it's not easy to see why you should get one right now. It's still a fresh product and prices are bound to drop sooner or later. Once they do, this will be the 9600 GT to go for.