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Hardware NVIDIA Launches GeForce 9600 GT
Purav Sanghani - February 20, 2008 8:40 PM
Print E-mail del.icio.us 81 comment(s) - last by PitViper007.. on Feb 26 at 1:14 PM

NVIDIA GeForce 9600GT Specifications

NVIDIA GeForce 9600GT Game Performance - Single Card vs SLI
GeForce 9-series to bring G94 to the market

Exactly one month ago NVIDIA leaked GeForce 9600 GT benchmarks with very attractive results. The G94-based graphics card gave the current high-end GeForce 8-series cards and AMD's HD3800-series a run for the money using beta drivers coming short in only a few benchmarks.

Though the 9600 GT will be the mid-range card in the D9x graphics family, with such impressive performance over the previous generation, many have already proclaimed the G94 the pinnacle of price-performance in the series.

Tomorrow NVIDIA will officially launch the 9600GT and the cost will attract the masses. Between $169 and 189 the 9600GT will compete with the 8800 GT in performance but the newcomer adds a number of new features from an architecture standpoint.

The 9600 GT's stock configuration will be a core clocked at 650MHz with a shader clock speed of 1625 MHz and 512MB of 1800 MHz memory. Utilizing a 256-bit bus, the reference 9600 GT is able to pump data through its veins at 57.6 GB/sec. These numbers are subject to change, of course, depending on the manufacturer of the card and what memory is used since NVIDIA only designs the reference cards. Additionally, the 9600GT's G94 processor features 64 unified stream processors, twice the number found on the last generation 8600GT.

The card will require a 6-pin power connector and will consume around 95W of power in a single-card setup. The reference design had a single slot design but third party card manufacturers may decide to throw in some extra cooling hardware in their designs for extra heat dissipation since there are reports that the G94 runs hot under the single slot heat sink fan solution.

The reference board will also feature two dual-link DVI outputs and a single multi-out video connector for output to a high-definition TV.

As far as performance goes, NVIDIA claims a couple 9600 GT's in SLI mode will perform slightly better than a single 8800 GTX. With the cost of an 8800 GTX still above the $400 price point, the 9600 GT SLI setup is a better investment. Just to mention it, NVIDIA states the 9600 GT puts out twice the frame rates as the 8600GTS when comparing SLI performance.

AMD announced price cuts on its high-end offerings today.  The Radeon HD 3870, which was priced at $249, has dropped to $189 while the HD  3850 dropped $30 from its original $199 price point to a down to earth $169 to better compete with the GeForce 9600 GT.

Initial benchmarks claim the GeForce 9600 GT is extremely competitive with the AMD Radeon HD 3850. Overclocked versions of the GeForce 9600 GT barely edge out AMD's highest offerings with current drivers.

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Silly nVidia fanboys
By RogueLegend on 2/21/08, Rating: 0
RE: Silly nVidia fanboys
By RogueLegend on 2/21/08, Rating: 0
RE: Silly nVidia fanboys
By ocyl on 2/21/08, Rating: 0
RE: Silly nVidia fanboys
By sandalsocks on 2/21/08, Rating: -1
RE: Silly nVidia fanboys
By sandalsocks on 2/21/08, Rating: -1
RE: Silly nVidia fanboys
By JSK on 2/21/2008 5:11:27 AM , Rating: 2
"NVIDIA claims a couple 9600 GT's in SLI mode will perform slightly better than a single 8800 GTX"

I think you need to reread the article...

The card does NOT compete with the 8800GTX, though two of them do.


RE: Silly nVidia fanboys
By DingieM on 2/21/2008 9:19:53 AM , Rating: 3
Its the other way around, ATI trumps nVidia this time around with the HD38xx series, and certainly on the price/performance ratio. Because ATI can even lower the prices due to much better manufaturing (yes they exceeded nVidia).

Do mind that with the bug-laden R600, ATI was half a year behind nVidia. Now ATI is supreme on the mainstream segment regarding price/performance AND especially features. They really learned from their mistakes.

With this 9600GT, nVidia is way later to market and compared to ATI that was earlier to market with their HD38xx, the gap has close CONSIDERABLY.

Now watch out the upcoming RV7xx generation of ATI, they certainly may arrive earlier than expected, that will OBLITERATE the 9600GT and beyond generation of nVidia.

And there is the dual-chip/card solution where ATI has a way better card than nVidia on the price/performance ratio. nVidia has many problems with 65nm overheating chips.
I expect the dual-chip/card solution to be 10% faster (at least) than the HD3870 X2, but it will be much much more expensive than the ATI offering.
But than again, nVidia is way behind ATI regarding Corssfire X solutions and implementation.
ATI already demonstrated 2 HD3870 X2's QUAD CROSSFIRE that showed COD4 on 2650x1600 4xAA and 100FPS. Beta drivers.

If you objectively identify the market situation and the future, ATI is getting way better than nVidia.
Period.


RE: Silly nVidia fanboys
By Mitch101 on 2/21/2008 10:19:10 AM , Rating: 2
The rumors are R700 is taped out and runs excellent but drivers need a few more tweeks. You wont hear anything about its performance because they don't want to jeopardize the R600 line which is selling very well for AMD/ATI. if R700 runs as cool as its rumored to do and performance is as again rumored then ATI will gain the performance crown but probably more importantly will have a much cooler running product than NVIDIA the next time around.

The graphics division is pretty much keeping AMD alive until they can get K10.5/45nm rolling out the door. Which again rumor has it K10.5 reaches 3ghz without a problem. Rev 3 65nm K10 is rumored to only go to 2.6ghz which isnt enough.

Overclocks not remotely considered at this time.

NVIDIA is supposedly having some heat issues and a possible bug in the chip but will drop the prices of the 8800 lineup to compete with AMD as they have a slight performance edge over the 3800 series. Maybe a 3 month delay? No biggie its about time they had a hiccup but its not the end of the world because were talking about the $350+ price ranges for NVIDIA/ATI products which is not the sweet spot for graphics sales. NVIDIA will soon grab a healthy chunk of the cell phone market when the iPhone killer is released.


RE: Silly nVidia fanboys
By Serafina on 2/21/2008 11:12:25 AM , Rating: 1
ATI was ahead with their midrange card because they're high end card sucked.

Nvidia's 8800 card destroyed any high end card ATI had so all they could do was focus on mid range. Ati couldn't compete at high range.

Nvidia didn't care if they came out with something that beated the HD3870 because all their cards were destroying ati's cards and people weren't buying ati cards.


RE: Silly nVidia fanboys
By Mitch101 on 2/21/2008 3:24:46 PM , Rating: 3
What?

ATI 38XX series has been selling like mad and so has the Nvidia 8800 series. The difference is that ATI has been able to churn out more chips than NVIDIA. Expect sales of both to be very high but ATI at an advantage of being able to deliver parts.

I can only name one game the NVIDIA card can play at 1680x1050 at decent frame rates that the ATI card would struggle with. Drop the resolution on the one game and the Radeon 38XX series does fine. I hardly call this a loss. The only advantage the NVIDIA has over ATI is better FSAA performance. Those who don't use FSAA because they play at high resolution don't care.

DX10.1 while not important is a future proof item that ATI has the NVIDIA doesn't. Anyone remember the stink NVIDIA kicked about smartshader 3.0 and if you didnt have it your card sucked. Dont let marketing overblow this stuff but that .1 is a nice no worry bonus about future proofing a product should game developers take advantage of it.

This leaves HEAT and NOISE as a factor. Where there is HEAT there is noise. ATI chips are running a lot cooler than their NVIDIA counter parts. Oh an Power ATI runs with less power requirements meaning you dont need to upgrade that power supply.

Quit worrying about ATI/NVIDIA and start worrying about when Intel finally gets graphics right because the reputation between NVIDIA and Intel is on worse than thin ICE and Intel has it out for NVIDIA.


RE: Silly nVidia fanboys
By RogueLegend on 2/21/2008 1:22:48 PM , Rating: 1
nVidia has a history of releasing its high end first. Back when they in the 4000 series, and no one else had anything close (ATi was only JUST beginning to take the graphics market seriously) they kept besting themselves by releasing the Titanium series, and various higher clock/memory in spite of nothing coming close.

It's the way nVidia's marketing works even when they have had direct competition from ATi. There are three reasons for this:

a) They wow people with the super-high performance of their chip.

b) If they release earlier, they get advantage over the market, are able to lower prices faster

c) By releasing the high end first, if the competitions high end does win out in benchmarks, nVidia will have already sold their chips off to the early adopters, scoring some sales even if they lose the benchmarks race.

d) The sooner you release the high end (usually without the mid range in place) you can often earn design wins with OEMS. Again, this garners the maximum returns for your initial investment.

This makes more business sense than trying to trump the competition in benchmarks. Chips become cheaper over time, but usually only after initial sales. The longer they hold off on releasing the chip, the less return on investment they get, leading to higher prices for longer to make returns on investment costs. Manufacturing costs don't go down unless you order on volume and repeatedly, and you don't get better yeilds unless you keep manufacturing and working out the kinks in the manufacturing process. This also leads to lower costs and return on investment.

This is why nVidia has always realeased the high end first, and has always tried to release ahead of the competition; then trickle the technology down to mid/low ranges. They need to try to make as much money back on their investment as soon as possible.


RE: Silly nVidia fanboys
By RogueLegend on 2/21/2008 1:28:05 PM , Rating: 2
LOL, it seems I can't type straight- was up late working. those were 4 reason I gave, and I would go thru and edit all my gramatical errors, but I think you all got my meaning.


RE: Silly nVidia fanboys
By theprodigalrebel on 2/21/2008 5:22:20 AM , Rating: 2
Just about every 8-series card that I see on Newegg is HDCP-compliant. I also see 8800GTs from Zotac with HDMI output and a user review claims it has audio-out.

Have you seen the review on Tweaktown? The 9600GT has stunning performance for its MSRP. They have tweaked the core and this card - with 64 SPs - performs close to the 112SPs-equipped 8800GT. They are improving their lineup and the big kahuna is rumored to drop in late March.

Your argument has set sail for fail.


RE: Silly nVidia fanboys
By RogueLegend on 2/21/2008 4:15:30 PM , Rating: 1
Firstly, if it supports HDCP compliance is meaningless unless you have an actual HDMI port- which makes me wonder what HDCP compliant actually means. Most of the cards use either S-Video, or a component breakout, but again, no actual HDMI in most of the cards.

And again, given nVidia's strong, consistent history of releasing high end cards first, then mid grade cards (believe me, when you invest so much in R&D, you want to put your best, most expnsive card out first to make a return on your investment) one wonders why they didn't do it this time, especially with the midgrade out. There's no real benefit to getting out your middle of the line offering other than just trying to beat the competition to market. They put their most effort and focus in developing the high end, as the midgrade and low end cards don't need to be refined as much. So why nVidia didn't do it this time is great question.


RE: Silly nVidia fanboys
By Ajax9000 on 2/21/2008 7:00:56 PM , Rating: 2
quote:
Firstly, if it supports HDCP compliance is meaningless unless you have an actual HDMI port- which makes me wonder what HDCP compliant actually means. Most of the cards use either S-Video, or a component breakout, but again, no actual HDMI in most of the cards.

Not correct.

The DVI connection can act as an HDMI connection and carry audio AND be HDCP compliant.

Cards that are designed to do audio over DVI with HDCP include:

Asus EN8600GT/HTDI/256M http://www.asus.com.tw/products.aspx?l1=2&l2=6&l3=...

Zotac GeForce 8600 GT ZONE http://zotac.com/index.php?option=com_content&task...

There are Sparkle and Galaxy 8800GTs that do DVI audio too but I can't remember the links at the moment.

Newer ATI/AMD cards also do audio over DVI with HDCP, but ATI/AMD seems to have (quite unnecessarily) fiddled around with the standrds to do so.

(For some technical explanations see my [H] post here:- http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?p=10316508... )


RE: Silly nVidia fanboys
By Ronin on 2/21/2008 8:13:17 PM , Rating: 2
The simple answer to this is there's no reason to. ATI has no competition right now for the high end component, so why put it out there? Midrange is ultimately where the market is, and NVIDIA knows this (so does ATI). It makes more sense financially to release the midrange card, as there's no real new technology within it, like a massive change from the 7 to the 8 series.

You're treating this like a nexgen launch, where they would typically provide that high end part first. That's not what this is.


RE: Silly nVidia fanboys
By RogueLegend on 2/22/2008 3:08:38 AM , Rating: 1
quote:
You're treating this like a nexgen launch,


Actually, that's part of what this is, the whole 9xxx nomenclature is an indication of generation. I'm not the only one who seems to think so:

quote:
The first surprise is that this new generation of cards is not being introduced at the high end, as has always been the case, but rather the midrange, mainstream price point. In reality, there's a very simple explanation for this phenomenon: the architecture behind this card is the same as that introduced on the GeForce 8, and hardly improved with the arrival of the midrange versions (the 8600 GT, then the 8800 GT, as has been Nvidia's custom since the GeForce 6 series).

http://www.tomshardware.com/2008/02/21/nvidia_gefo...

Further, the 9800 is supposed to be based on a new chip. Effectively, what nVidia's marketing is trying to do is convince people (through naming conventions) that they're introducing new technology with the 9600 (new gen, new tech) without actually releasing the new tech (the 9800).

It's not me who's treating this as a "nexgen" launch. It's nVidia.

And ATi does have competition on the high end- or did you miss the 3800 X2's?

Here's the real problem. ATi has an edge over nVidia in terms of manufacturing process (which TomsHardware talks about and analyzes). ATi has potential to be more profitable at its midrange than nVidia. The truth about the 9600 is that it's a respun, cut down version of the technology found in the 8000 series, with a much higher clock speed. In doing this, they cut the size of the die they manufacture, increasing profitability (only if the yeilds hold up).

I'm not denying that the performance of this part looks good, and is competitive. But right now, it seems as if this part is aimed at increasing nVidia's profitability at the midrange and at the same time, convince people that it's a new generation of technology. There's no other reason to give it a 9xxx name. Otherwise, it would be just another 8xxx part.

And it makes NO sense to release the midrange card first. You risk losing customers who might otherwise have bought the high end (at higher prices, I might add) to your own midrange offerings.

If it makes sense financially to release the midrange first, then why has nVidia in the past ALWAYS released the high end first? It makes more sense from a strategic/marketing point of view to release your high end first. You gain more mindshare and a market advantage with the high end out first. nVidia knows this is more important and this is why they always do the high end first.


RE: Silly nVidia fanboys
By ThePooBurner on 2/21/08, Rating: -1
RE: Silly nVidia fanboys
By eye smite on 2/21/2008 9:32:50 AM , Rating: 4
You guys can squabble all you want. To me it means prices will come down more. I'm actually entertaining the idea of replacing this X700 pro 256mb card now. :-) I've got my moneys worth out of it for certain. hehe