Published in Reviews

Zotac 9600 GT G94 is super-fast

by on21 February 2008

Index


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Review: Speedy new mainstream

 

Zotac announced its AMP version of the 9600GT card. The tiny G94 core, also known as D9M, runs at 725MHz, while the reference speeds for 9600GT's are 650MHz. In case you forgot, Zotac was the first company that dared to overclock the 8800GT (G92) card to 700MHz, and it's these moves that quickly captured the hearts of Nvidia lovers. So now, 9600GT AMP Edition follows in its predecessor's footsteps. AMP 9600 GT card's memory runs at 1000MHz with Shaders at 1750MHz. Bear in mind that reference speeds are 900MHz memory and 1625MHz for Shaders.

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Geforce 9600GT is here to replace the previous 8600GT generation of cards tha are simply too old to fight off the competition, both from ATI and in its own back yard. It's time to abandon the G84 8600GT, so we took the liberty of comparing EVGA's overclocked 8600GTS with reference and AMP versions of 9600GT. Since G94 is a crippled version of G92, a chip that's touted as one of the best performance chips ever, we expected good performance – and we got exactly that.

The Geforce 8600 has a 128-bit memory interface, but Nvidia's new mainstream card, the Geforce 9600GT, has a 256-bit memory interface that most certainly makes a difference. Graphics are getting evermore demanding and 512MB of GDDR3 on Geforce 9600GT definitely comes in handy. In this respect, the card is identical to the 8800 GT. The 9600GT packs 64 Shaders, twice as much as the 8600, which has 32 Shaders. The 8800GT has 112. Compared to the new 9600GT, the old 8600 card is smaller and just looks puny. Zotac offers all this for just €169.

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Length-wise, this card is as long as the 8800 GT or 8800GTS, and if it wasn’t for the sticker, we could have easily mistaken it for a 8800GT.

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Like we said before, the card packs 512MB of 256-bit memory that surrounds the G94 core. Zotac uses Samsung K4J52324QE - BJ1A memory chips running at 1000MHz. Memory bandwidth of Geforce 9600 GT is 57.6Gps. PCI Express power will not be enough so you’ll have to use 6pin power connector, and you can see that this PCB uses two-phase power. Zotac recommends a PSU with no less than 400W, and the card’s maximum consumption accounts for about 90W. Left to the SLI connector is a small connector that’s used to route audio from S/PDIF out on the motherboard. The card comes with an HDMI adapter that’s utilized in full only when you use it to route audio to the card – otherwise you’ll get only HD video. HDCP (High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection) is on, of course.

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G94 GPU is a DirectX10, OpenGL 2.1, Shader Model 4.0 product designed for PCI Express 2.0 and manufactured in 65nm by TSMC. The chip has 505 million transistors and it should compete with HD 3850 and HD 3870 cards.

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The rear side features two standard dual-link DVI ports with HDCP as well as TV-out (HTDV). Although you can use DVI-to-HDMI dongle to connect your HDTV or HDMI device, the card doesn’t feature HDMI or Display Port that this card natively supports. 9600 GT AMP has a single-slot reference cooler that’s more than up to its job of cooling the G94 chip. During testing, we measured up to 65°C compared to the 8800GT card that heats up to 90°C with the same cooler. Idle mode temperature was around 46°C.

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The fan is quiet and didn’t significantly increase its speed during heavy tasks. Zotac uses standard packaging, and seeing “Low-Noise Cooling” written on the box was music to our ears.

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The card comes with standard and necessary content for your gaming and viewing pleasure, and you can use the cable that comes in the box to route your sound through HDMI.

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Testbed:

Motherboard:
EVGA 680i SLI (Supplied by EVGA)

Processor:
Intel Core 2 Duo 6800 Extreme edition (Supplied by Intel)

Memory:
OCZ FlexXLC PC2 9200 5-5-5-18  (Supplied by OCZ)
        while testing CL5-5-5-15-CR2T 1066MHz at 2.2V

PSU:
OCZ Silencer 750 Quad Black ( Supplied by OCZ)

Hard disk:
Seagate Barracuda 7200.9 80GB SATA (Supplied by Seagate)

CPU-Cooler:
Freezer 7 Pro (Supplied by Artic Cooling)

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

ATI Driver:

Sample-R680_xp_vista_8-451-2-080123a
8-1_xp32_dd_ccc_wdm_enu_57717

Nvidia Driver:

169.21_forceware_winxp_32bit_english_whql
169.28_forceware_winxp_32bit_english_beta
171.16_forceware_winxp_32bit_english_ za 9600GT

Futuremarks:

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Initial testing has proven that 9600GT is better than the Geforce 8800 GS that’s now officially outclassed. In 3DMark06 the 9600GT beat 8800 GS 384MB by 15%. Compared to the reference card, Zotac's 9600 GT AMP! was better by 7% and the biggest performance advantage was 8% in 3DMark 03. This proves the G94 chip scales well when overclocked.

In 3DMark06, reference 9600GT beat the old 8600 GT by impressive 68%.


Gaming:

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The overclocked Zotac 9600GT AMP handles higher speeds well and it beats the reference 9600 GT card by 10% in Crysis. Geforce 8600GT with 256MB of 128bit memory can’t do Crysis on high settings, but medium settings could do the trick. At medium settings and lower resolutions it results in great gameplay. 8800GT outperformed Zotac's 9600GT AMP by up to 17% and reference 9600 GT up to 29%.

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Company of Heroes proved that F.E.A.R. is an exception that simply likes the new 9600 GT. In this game 8800 GS can compare to stock 9600GT, but Zotac’s OC card was better by up to 11%. As we increased the resolution, 8800GT showed its real strength – in the beginning it was better by 15%, but the highest resolution resulted in a performance advantage of almost 30% over Zotac’s card and almost 40% over the reference 9600GT. 

 

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Seeing the overclocked G94 on Zotac’s card performing in F.E.A.R. was a joy to behold. It ran on par with 8800 GT and beat the reference card by up to 12%. Radeon HD 3870 and HD 3850 were slower.


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In all resolutions below 1920 more than twice as fast compared to any 8600 GT. The overclocked Zotac AMP! Edition is quite close to the 8800 GT.

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With AA and AF turned off, Radeon cards perform much better and we see that ATI's HD 3870 manages to beat the 9600GT. In other scenarios 9600GT outperformed or performed on par with HD 3870. In World in Conflict, overclocked Zotac 9600 GT AMP performed almost as well as 8800 GT and about 15% faster than the reference card.


Conclusion

For a mid-range product, the new 9600GT is great and the results confirm that. Priced at around €170, Zotac 9600 GT is an attractive card, but we’re still hoping that the prices will drop further. A simple glance at a price-per-frame ratio confirms that 9600 GT and 8800 GT provide a lot of bang for your buck, so AMD will have to resort to price wars in order to fight new Nvidia products.

You can play all the newer games with this card and get a decent framerate. The card is excellent and sometimes outperforms 8600GT by 100%, but the price is much too close to 8800GT cards.

Zotac’s card runs 75MHz faster than reference and is not too noisy. If you want to buy 9600GT, this one looks like a great deal, and definitely a better choice than a reference 9600GT.

Last modified on 23 February 2008
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