BFGTech GeForce 9600 GT OC @ [H]

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FrgMstr

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BFGTech GeForce 9600 GT OC - The new GeForce 9600 GT is poised to deliver high performance for under $200. We take the new BFGTech GeForce 9600 GT OC for a spin in Crysis, COD 4, and UT3 to test its mettle. Is your hard earned cash better spent on a Radeon HD 3850, Radeon HD 3870, or GeForce 8800 GT.

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Price is going to be the most important aspect of the GeForce 9600 GT. The price of GeForce 8800 GT is falling to sub-$200 levels. Unless you find a GeForce 9600 GT at the low end of the MSRP it may be smarter to shell out the extra cash for the 8800 GT. In all of our testing the 8800 GT performed better, as expected. The BFGTech GeForce 9600 GT falls right under the 8800 GT in terms of the gameplay experience provided while providing a better experience than the Radeon HD 3850 or 3870.
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Rather impressive for what it is, this brings high hopes for the 9800 series.
btw Nice review too.
 
Compared to that steaming pile of silicon known as the 8500/8600 series...the 9600GT, if they get it down to the recommended MSRP, will be what mid level gaming should be. I think many of us were frustrated that to get decent gaming performance you needed to spend more than $200.

Nice review and dugg it. Now, off to look at more reviews to see how they paint the picture.
 
I'll have to recommend this card to a friend, who is running dual 1680 monitors on an 8600gt.

Nice review :cool:
 
That is some serious performance! It makes me wonder about G9x architecture, though. It would seem on the surface that it would be noticeably crippled compared to the 8800GT as it has half the stream processors and much fewer texture address/filter units, yet it performs very similarly.
 
skadebo said:
That is some serious performance! It makes me wonder about G9x architecture, though. It would seem on the surface that it would be noticeably crippled compared to the 8800GT as it has half the stream processors and much fewer texture address/filter units, yet it performs very similarly.
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It does until you put it into comparison using an extremely shader intensive game like Crysis. Then all of a sudden you see where all that silicon means something. I think there is no doubt that we are going to be seeing more and more shader intensive games and this is why we think the GT is likely a better value for most of our readers right now considering current pricing.
 
I saw a best buy last night while I was out so I stopped in and looked at the box and it was Neat-o! I found this review much more satisfying than just looking at a box! I <3 the [H]ard reviews.
 
Wow how things change...

Just yesterday the HD3870 was undeniably the best bang for the buck for gaming at 1280x1024, but even with its price cut, today the 9600GT is a much better value.
 
skadebo said:
Which part of the graphics of a game are represented by shaders? Wierd question I know, mainly because I never really learned what the heck a shader was.
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In Crysis, several things, such as lighting, shadows, the HDR used when Shaders Quality is set to "High", bumpmapping effects, specular, etc.... A pixel or vertex shader is a program that carries out a function on a texture, adding some kind of detail to it, in very basic terms it is the GPU crunching numbers to make textures look more detailed.
 
Oh, THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU! for including the FPS/time graphs. Those make me feel like I have such a better idea of what I can expect from frame rates than just min max and average. Why don't other reviews do this :(
 
At first it seemed like a new architecture, but apparently its just 1/2 8800 GTS or twice 8600, with some serious shader optimizations. I like the fact that it has a 256bit bus, the 8600's 128 bit bus was its worst bottleneck
 
Trepidati0n said:
Compared to that steaming pile of silicon known as the 8500/8600 series....
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only few months after launch you could pick up 8600 GT 256Mb for less than $100, at that price point it beat any competitor, with a nice margin, played newer shader heavy games nicely where the 7 series failed and for low/mid-range setup it was an ideal match. Combine this with HDMI, low heatput (passive cooled!) and you got a prime contender for HTPC setup and low noise workstation.

It's thank to AMD's 3850/3870 that we have the 9600 GT now so early at such an interesting price point! As far as I can remember, NVIDIA always launched their top end first (8800GTX, 7900GTX, 6800Ultra, 5800Ultra, 4600Ti, Geforce3 (Ti500)) before they launched their mid-range.

Competition at the $200 price bracket from AMD made NVIDIA change their tactic as they are now releasing their new mid-range product months before their new high end. (don't really count 9800GX2 as new high end, as it's basically 2x8800GT) the 9800 GT(X?) will not be here before summer according to rumors.
 
Stoly said:
At first it seemed like a new architecture, but apparently its just 1/2 8800 GTS or twice 8600, with some serious shader optimizations. I like the fact that it has a 256bit bus, the 8600's 128 bit bus was its worst bottleneck
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All G90 series GPUs have the improved data compression technology, a card like the 9600 GT benefits more from it, plus its shaders are clocked very high, 1.625 GHz.
 
Interesting card... The cooler looks identical to the 8800gt's, is it?
If so, could the number of sp's account for the MASSIVE heat difference?
 
TheBluePill said:
How did it game at the 780mhz OC??
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Didn't have time to follow through with performance testing after OC. From what I experienced while testing the OC for stability there was a noticeable improvement in Crysis smoothness, but I didn't test to see how high I could push the in-game settings at this OC level.
 
Modred189 said:
Interesting card... The cooler looks identical to the 8800gt's, is it?
If so, could the number of sp's account for the MASSIVE heat difference?
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Of course. Less transistors, less heat. The 9600 GT has roughly 500 million, while the 8800 GT has roughly 750 million.
 
Brent_Justice said:
All G90 series GPUs have the improved data compression technology, a card like the 9600 GT benefits more from it, plus its shaders are clocked very high, 1.625 GHz.
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yup, I forgot to mention that, BTW you never elaborated on the compression technology, I'm curious on how it works.
 
Brent_Justice said:
Didn't have time to follow through with performance testing after OC. From what I experienced while testing the OC for stability there was a noticeable improvement in Crysis smoothness, but I didn't test to see how high I could push the in-game settings at this OC level.
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Gotcha.. Assuming the Card was had for <$200 and the average person got a solid 750-780OC, would it be a better choice than the 8800GT in your opinion?

*EDIT* For Budget Gamers
 
Modred189 said:
Interesting card... The cooler looks identical to the 8800gt's, is it?
If so, could the number of sp's account for the MASSIVE heat difference?
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It is similar, but not exactly the same, obviously the 9600 GT's heatsink has room for a much larger fan, but the mounting holes on the back do match up between them.

The lesser amount of SP's can certainly account for less heat, the GPU has 505 million transistors, which is less than the 8800 GTs 754 million.
 
Silus said:
Of course. Less transistors, less heat. The 9600 GT has roughly 500 million, while the 8800 GT has roughly 750 million.
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But nearly 30 degrees?

Either way, awesome review, good card. Still glad I took [H]'s advice on the 8800gt.
 
Stoly said:
yup, I forgot to mention that, BTW you never elaborated on the compression technology, I'm curious on how it works.
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pretty much what I've said is what we know, there are some new transistors in place to facilitate this, plus some new software algorithms that improve efficiencies across the bus and achieve better data compression
 
Review is good.

Card is meh. Why buy it if the 8800 GT will beat it soundly for a mere 20 dollars, and maybe soon less.
 
TheBluePill said:
Gotcha.. Assuming the Card was had for <$200 and the average person got a solid 750-780OC, would it be a better choice than the 8800GT in your opinion?

*EDIT* For Budget Gamers
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Depends how much you can get an 8800 GT for, the MSI on Newegg is $199 after rebate... Maybe take an 8800 GT and OC it?

BTW, we are working on a 9600 GT eval of a very highly OC'd 9600 GT compared to an 8800 GT, so perhaps that comparison will help you.
 
No SLI numbers?

No. It was my decision not to put in SLI numbers due to buying patterns we have seen in the past. We just don't see people buying two sub-$200 cards at a time to SLI when they can put $400 into a single card solution. - Kyle
 
Modred189 said:
But nearly 30 degrees?

Either way, awesome review, good card. Still glad I took [H]'s advice on the 8800gt.
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Keep in mind as well that different GPUs of the same part will run different temperatures. I felt our 8800GTs hit the high side of what we saw from our readers, so this 9600GT may very well hit the low side.

But you are looking at approximately 30% less transistors. 30% is a big percentage decrease. Look at the wattage chart as well.

1203546198ubL2AEBGjn_6_4.gif


9600GT - 58w delta between idle and load. (x.8 for actual PSU = 46.6w)
8800GT - 79w delta between idle and load. (x.8 for actual PSU = 63.2w)
 
wait wait wait, at the end of the review you said only a 25mhz GPU overclock :S But in the article it said an amazing 105mhz. I'm quite lost here. Are you talking about the stock overclock being only 25mhz? Thats usually the norm for BFG's so im a little thrown off :p

If this actually hits the MSRP soon then i've got one person who I know will pick on up :D

Thanks for the review doods.
 
I don't understand why you guys run Crysis in DX10 mode. Whenever a post in your gaming section deals with Crysis/Crysis gaming performance/Crysis configs, DX9 is always recommended. I would go out on a limb and say a majority of your core readers don't find your Crysis numbers particularly useful.

I believe you guys stated that you run Crysis in DX10 mode is because it defaults to that mode out of the box. Well, that doesn't seem to go well with what your [H] reviews are about, trying to enable the most eye candy while having an acceptable frame rate (since DX9 offers more eye candy with less of a performance penalty). So what's the deal, why do you guys test Crysis in DX10, when your readers most likely don't play the game with that API, and it's not very [H]ard of you to use inferior default settings?.
 
Excellent review of an exciting card! Although I'm glad my step-up 8800GT is on the way...:D

I would not be surprised to see the 9600GT fall quickly to the $150 or even sub-$150 range in response to price pressure from the 8800GT. Then where will AMD be?
 
TheBluePill said:
Gotcha.. Assuming the Card was had for <$200 and the average person got a solid 750-780OC, would it be a better choice than the 8800GT in your opinion?

*EDIT* For Budget Gamers
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and 8800 GT also overclocks to higher speeds, again, leaving an OC'ed 9600 GT behind, don't rely solely on OC results to compare products;) 8800 GT 512Mb can be found below $200 too and makes it a better deal if you are running higher resolutions (1600x1200 and up) below that, the 9600 GT will be the better sale, and is matched with HD 3870 which is priced down now too, below 9600 GT in some shops
 
Commander Suzdal said:
Excellent review of an exciting card! Although I'm glad my step-up 8800GT is on the way...:D

I would not be surprised to see the 9600GT fall quickly to the $150 or even sub-$150 range in response to price pressure from the 8800GT. Then where will AMD be?
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Doubt it. If it is indeed the best bang for your buck it seems to be, the demand will be so high that prices will stay high aswell. Shouldn't go over $200 though,
 
0mega said:
wait wait wait, at the end of the review you said only a 25mhz GPU overclock :S But in the article it said an amazing 105mhz. I'm quite lost here. Are you talking about the stock overclock being only 25mhz? Thats usually the norm for BFG's so im a little thrown off :p

If this actually hits the MSRP soon then i've got one person who I know will pick on up :D

Thanks for the review doods.
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Yes, dissapointment in the small 25 MHz bump out of the box, and non mem OC.
 
tickle_me_emo said:
I don't understand why you guys run Crysis in DX10 mode.
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Thanks for your thoughts. They are noted....again. We are not going to start switching up on API or OSes for what certain people feel as though is "better." There is not more to be discussed on this issue. Should you feel it deserves more attention, please post your own thread on the topic.
 
0mega said:
Cool, thanks for the clarification :)
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I rephrased this in the article. This should make it crystal. Thanks for pointing it out!

Our only disappointment is the rather small 25MHz stock out-of-the-box GPU overclock and missing memory overclock.
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Hmm..

Looking at Prices, the BFG seems to be selling for the $229 MSRP most places, EVGA has several OC'd Versions on sale, with a 740mhz version for $209 on New egg... Seems like that would be a fairly good deal..

Wonder why such a price premium on the BFG?
 
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