Print Article: NVIDIA GeForce 9600 GT Performance Preview



		NVIDIA GeForce 9600 GT Performance Preview February 21, 2008

Summary: With 64 shaders and a 256-bit memory interface, you may not expect the 9600 GT to outperform a GeForce 8800 GTS 320MB, but that's exactly what it did in our testing. In fact, its performance sometimes rivals the GeForce 8800 GT! See what makes this card so special in today's article!

NVIDIA GeForce 9600 GT Performance Preview Page:: ( 1 / 16 )

Let’s just say that many enthusiasts were terribly disappointed with the performance of these first generation DX10 mainstream cards.

The GeForce 8600 GTS debuted back in April with much fanfare. We were all eager to see how powerful NVIDIA’s latest mainstream offering would be. If you recall, NVIDIA had just released a trio of new mainstream DX9 GPUs just prior to the 8600 GTS’ release that included the GeForce 7900 GS, the 7950 GT, and the 7900 GTO. The EVGA e-GeForce 7900 GTO in particular had really struck a chord with us as it offered performance that was near that of a 7900 GTX, but at a much more affordable $250 price tag. So when the GeForce 8600 GTS debuted delivering performance that was roughly on par with the 7900 GS, gamers were left scratching their heads: the 8600 GTS was hardly an improvement over the GeForce 7900 GS or Radeon X1950 Pro. Many gamers plucked up these cards and passed on the 8600 GTS.

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AMD’s Radeon HD 2600 launch wasn’t any better in the eyes of enthusiasts. The 2600 was actually slower than the GeForce 8600 GTS and Radeon X1950 Pro!

For the most part, enthusiasts shopping the $200 graphics market opted to hang on to their GeForce 7900 GS and X1950 Pro cards hoping for something better to come along. As the months passed, nothing came. Those that could afford it picked up the GeForce 8800 GTS 320MB, but with its $300 price tag even it was a little too much coin for some to stomach. The GeForce 8800 GT delivered such an incredible price/performance ratio that a lot of gamers that were holding out ultimately picked one of these cards up, but shortages and retailer markups significantly hampered things early on.

Then in November the market finally got what it wanted thanks to AMD’s Radeon HD 3850: an inexpensive, sub-$200 graphics card that was a compelling upgrade over the X1950 Pro and 7900 GS. Sure, it wasn’t as fast as the GeForce 8800 GT, but it cost roughly $80-$100 less and frequently outperformed the GeForce 8600 GTS by over 30%, making it the fastest sub-$200 graphics card on the market.

The 3850 became an overnight sales success for AMD with thousands of boards being sold just ahead of Christmas.

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NVIDIA and their board partners tried to counter the 3850 with the 8800 GT 256MB, but they just couldn’t get their pricing in line with estimates and the lower frame buffer memory really curtailed performance at higher resolutions. The GeForce 8800 GS was most recently concocted to rival the Radeon 3850, but with its continued use of the G92 graphics core it just wasn’t a cost effective way to counter AMD’s $180 offering. A new GPU that was cheaper to produce was needed, and it was needed fast. This is where the G94 GPU comes in.

The G94 GPU used in today’s GeForce 9600 GT launch was rushed into service to take on the Radeon HD 3850. G94 uses fewer transistors than G92 – 505 million versus 754 million – making it cheaper to manufacture for NVIDIA. But what about performance? That’s what we’re here today to find out!

The specs Page:: ( 2 / 16 )

As we stated earlier, the GeForce 9600 GT consists of roughly 505 million transistors, over 200 million less than G92. So where did all the transistors go? From the stream processors. Whereas the G92 GPU boasts up to 128 stream processors, G94 has half that number, consisting of just 64 stream processors.

65-nm manufacturing process

According to NVIDIA, design and process improvements allow them to clock the stream processors at 1625MHz. That’s 275MHz higher than the GeForce 8800 GTX’s shaders and even 125MHz higher than GeForce 8800 GT. Our guess is that the reduced number of transistors also helped play a role in the higher speeds as the chip obviously draws less power and thus generates less heat. NVIDIA states that the max board power for the 9600 GT is 95W, 10W less than the GeForce 8800 GT and the same figure as AMD’s Radeon HD 3850.

Also like G92, NVIDIA has doubled the number of texture address units per texture processing cluster from four to eight. This gives G94 a peak texture filtering rate of 32GTexels/sec. In comparison, the GeForce 8800 GTS can filter just 24GTexels/sec peak. G94 also incorporates the same enhanced color and z-compression found in G92.

The following chart summarizes the key features found in today’s latest mainstream cards:

Mainstream Graphics Comparison Table
GeForce 8800 GT GeForce 8600 GTS GeForce 9600 GT Radeon HD 3870 Radeon HD 3850
Manufacturing Process 65-nm 80-nm 65-nm 55-nm 55-nm
# of Transistors 754M 289M 505M 666M 666M
Graphics Core Clock 600MHz 675MHz 650MHz 777MHz 670MHz
Shader Clock (Stream Processors) 1500MHz 1450MHz 1625MHz 777MHz 670MHz
# of Stream Processors 112 32 64 320 320
Memory Clock Speed 900MHz (1.8GHz effective) 1.0GHz (2.0GHz effective) 900MHz (1.8GHz effective) 1125MHz (2.25GHz effective) 900MHz (1.8GHz effective)
Memory Interface 256-bit 128-bit 256-bit 256-bit 256-bit
Memory Bandwidth (GB/s) 57.6GB/sec 32GB/sec 57.6GB/sec 72GB/sec 57.6GB/sec
Memory Size 512MB 256MB/512MB/1GB 512MB 512MB 256MB/512MB
# of ROPs 16 8 16 16 16
PCI Express Interface PCIe 2.0 PCIe 1.1 PCIe 2.0 PCIe 2.0 PCIe 2.0

Notes

Not mentioned in the chart above is the GeForce 9600 GT’s estimated MSRP: $189. The card essentially replaces the GeForce 8600 GTS, which will now do battle at the $150 and under mark. We should also note that G94 offers the same improved video introduced with G92 and the chip also supports HDMI as well as DisplayPort. NVIDIA’s board partners have the option of including HDMI or DisplayPort natively on the back plane of the card, or including HDMI support via an adapter. In fact, one of the 9600 GT cards we’re looking at today supports all three display options!

GeForce 9600 GT Board Analysis Page:: ( 3 / 16 )

When it was first launched the GeForce 8800 GT was criticized by some users for its high operating temperatures. While the card was designed to operate at high temps, users were upset that the card generated so much heat inside their system. NVIDIA and their board partners rectified the situation by integrating a slightly larger fan onto their boards. The larger fan ran at the same RPMs as the previous fan, but thanks to its larger design it was able to draw more air over the GPU, helping to keep temps in check. Last year we tested two GeForce 8800 GT boards, one with the original cooler, and a second card with the larger fan. In our testing we noted a difference of 25 degrees Celsius at load with the larger fan!

So what kind of temps should you expect out of the GeForce 9600 GT? In our open testing environment we saw temps of 42 degrees Celsius at idle, and 58 degrees at load. We’ll take another look at temperatures once we get more 9600 GT boards in for a roundup.

The reference GeForce 9600 GT is equipped with two dual-link DVI outputs with full support for HDCP, allowing you to watch Blu-ray and HD DVD movies on monitors up to 2560x1600 at full resolution. One change we were hoping to see but unfortunately isn’t present on the GeForce 9600 GT is a second SLI connector for 3-Way SLI. Leading up to the 9600 GT launch NVIDIA boasted that two 9600 GT cards were capable of outrunning a single GeForce 8800 GTX, so we’d be curious to see how three boards would fare. In addition, the 9600 GT’s closest natural competitor, the Radeon HD 3850, supports 4-Way operation, so the 9600 GT is technically at a disadvantage to the 3850 in this regard.

Up for eval today are four shipping GeForce 9600 GT cards.

ASUS EN9600 GT

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The ASUS EN9600 GT is the latest card we’ve received. ASUS’ card is a mirror replica of NVIDIA’s reference board design, using all the same components as NVIDIA. ASUS also clocks their board at the same speeds as NVIDIA’s reference specifications. Disappointed by this? Don’t be, considering ASUS’ rich tradition of factory OC’ed TOP cards, we have no doubt such a board is likely in the works.

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The EN9600 GT does support ASUS’ GamerOSD software, which can be used to provide real-time frames per second monitoring, video capture, and screenshot capture. GamerOSD can even be used to automatically overclock the GPU while you’re gaming. The card also ships with ASUS’ Smart Doctor software, which allows you to overclock the cards’ graphics core, memory, and stream processors. Smart Doctor can even be used to monitor the card’s fan speed, temperature, and voltages, as well as automatically adjust the card’s clock speeds. It’s a pretty neat utility that we’ve enjoyed over the years.

Besides bundling the card with two DVI adapters, ASUS includes one DVI adapter and one HDMI adapter. The card also ships with a power adapter and a component video cable.

The ASUS EN9600 GT sells for an MSRP of $189.

BFG GeForce 9600 GT OC

Like the ASUS card, BFG’s GeForce 9600 GT OC is based on NVIDIA’s reference board design and cooling, although obviously as an “OC” card the BFG board is overclocked from the factory. BFG clocks their board at 675MHz memory/1687MHz shaders, and 900MHz on the memory.

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BFG’s GeForce 9600 GT OC will carry an MSRP of $229.99 and is backed by their famous lifetime warranty. We’re crossing our fingers for an even higher clocked 9600 GT OC2 model, but nothing has been announced on that front just yet.

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EVGA e-GeForce 9600 GT SSC Edition

EVGA’s e-GeForce 9600 GT SSC is the fastest GeForce 9600 GT board we’ve received so far, running at speeds of 740MHz/1850 on the graphics core and stream processors and 975MHz on the memory. The card uses NVIDIA's reference board design and stock cooling. Whereas previous EVGA cards we've tested have come with game bundles (including games such as Crysis), EVGA skips bundling a game with the e-GeForce 9600 GT SSC to keep costs down. Instead this card is all about performance, and with its 740MHz core, it certainly delivers in this regard.

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Palit GeForce 9600 GT Sonic

Palit has incorporated a number of changes into their 9600 GT Sonic. Whereas the other cards tested in this article are based on NVIDIA’s reference board design, the Palit board features its own custom board design with 3-phase power (versus 2-phase in the other cards), a dual-slot cooler, factory overclocking, and display connectivity that’s unrivaled on any GeForce board we’ve seen – on the back plane of the Palit Sonic card you’ll find two DVI outputs and HDMI and DisplayPort connections!

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So how high does Palit clock the 9600 GT Sonic? How does 700MHz core/1750MHz shaders/1.0GHz memory sound? Palit also bundles the card with their VDOTool software, which allows you to overclock the graphics core, stream processors, and memory. VDOTool can also dynamically adjust clock speeds as well as providing hardware monitoring functionality.

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Palit says their 9600 GT Sonic will sell for $219.

AMD’s response

Obviously with the debut of a new mainstream GeForce GPU, AMD is under pressure to respond in some way. The solution they’ve come up with isn’t price cuts, rather we should be seeing factory OC’ed Radeon HD 3850 cards from their board partners that offer better cooling and 512MB of memory.

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An example of this is the HIS Radeon HD 3850 TurboX. The card features HIS’ 3rd generation dual-slot IceQ heatsink/fan unit and is clocked at 736MHz core/982MHz memory. Right now the card can be found on Newegg for as low as $173.99, making it slightly cheaper than the launch price of the original Radeon HD 3850 256MB! We’ve included this card, as well as a Radeon HD 3870 in this article so we can see how the Radeon cards stack up to the 9600 GT boards.

System Setup Page:: ( 4 / 16 )

Intel Core 2 Duo E6750

EVGA nForce 780i SLI motherboard

4GB Corsair TWIN2X2048-6400C4

ATI Radeon HD 3870
ATI Radeon HD 3870 X2
HIS Radeon HD 3850 TurboX
Catalyst 8.2

GeForce 8800 GTX
GeForce 8800 GT 512MB
GeForce 8800 GTS 320MB
GeForce 8600 GTS
GeForce 7900 GS
ForceWare 169.28

ASUS EN9600 GT
BFG GeForce 9600 GT OC
EVGA e-GeForce 9600 GT SSC Edition
Palit GeForce 9600 GT Sonic
ForceWare 174.12

300GB Western Digital Caviar SE

Windows Vista 64-bit w/Service Pack 1

Benchmarks

Company of Heroes 1.71
F.E.A.R. 1.08
Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
Call of Duty 4
Half-Life 2 Episode Two
Lost Planet
Crysis 1.1

F.E.A.R. Performance Page:: ( 5 / 16 )

F.E.A.R. Performance 1600x1200x32
Card Min FPS Max FPS
ASUS GeForce 9600 GT 35 144
GeForce 8800 GT 512MB 36 168
GeForce 8600 GTS 16 67
GeForce 7900 GS 21 74
GeForce 8800 GTS 320MB 30 130
HIS Radeon HD 3850 TurboX 18 117
GeForce 8800 GT 256MB 29 124
EVGA e-GeForce 9600 GT Superclocked 38 161
BFG GeForce 9600 GT OC 37 146
Palit GeForce 9600 GT Sonic 38 153
Radeon HD 3870 20 123

Company Of Heroes DX9 Page:: ( 6 / 16 )

Company of Heroes Performance 1600x1200x32
Card Min FPS Max FPS
ASUS GeForce 9600 GT 38.3 205
GeForce 8800 GT 512MB 44.5 230.7
GeForce 8600 GTS 13.9 94
GeForce 7900 GS 16.6 116
GeForce 8800 GTS 320MB 36.3 182
HIS Radeon HD 3850 TurboX 34.9 118.8
GeForce 8800 GT 256MB 34.3 180.4
EVGA e-GeForce 9600 GT Superclocked 41.3 218
BFG GeForce 9600 GT OC 40.3 203.5
Palit GeForce 9600 GT Sonic 40.9 209.7
Radeon HD 3870 38.6 127

Company Of Heroes DX10 Page:: ( 7 / 16 )

Company of Heroes Performance 1600x1200x32
Card Min FPS Max FPS
ASUS GeForce 9600 GT 12.6 81.7
GeForce 8800 GT 512MB 15.7 97
GeForce 8600 GTS 5.8 41
GeForce 8800 GTS 320MB 11.1 79.5
HIS Radeon HD 3850 TurboX 16.9 86.3
GeForce 8800 GT 256MB 17.5 62
EVGA e-GeForce 9600 GT Superclocked 12 34.8
BFG GeForce 9600 GT OC 13.7 92.1
Palit GeForce 9600 GT Sonic 12.9 80.1
Radeon HD 3870 15.7 80.

Oblivion Page:: ( 8 / 16 )

Oblivion Performance 1600x1200x32
Card Min FPS Max FPS
ASUS GeForce 9600 GT 28 40
GeForce 8800 GT 512MB 36 49
GeForce 8600 GTS 14 22
GeForce 7900 GS 15 23
GeForce 8800 GTS 320MB 28 40
HIS Radeon HD 3850 TurboX 31 45
GeForce 8800 GT 256MB 28 37
EVGA e-GeForce 9600 GT Superclocked 32 47
BFG GeForce 9600 GT OC 29 41
Palit GeForce 9600 GT Sonic 31 47
Radeon HD 3870 32 48

HL2 Episode 2 Page:: ( 9 / 16 )

Lost Planet DX9 Page:: ( 10 / 16 )

Lost Planet DX10 Page:: ( 11 / 16 )

Call Of Duty 4 Page:: ( 12 / 16 )

Call of Duty 4 Performance 1600x1200x32
Card Min FPS Max FPS
ASUS GeForce 9600 GT 23 81
GeForce 8800 GT 512MB 26 88
GeForce 8600 GTS 15 40
GeForce 7900 GS 12 24
GeForce 8800 GTS 320MB 22 72
HIS Radeon HD 3850 TurboX 22 75
GeForce 8800 GT 256MB 21 76
EVGA e-GeForce 9600 GT Superclocked 27 90
BFG GeForce 9600 GT OC 25 82
Palit GeForce 9600 GT Sonic 26 86
Radeon HD 3870 24 79

Crysis DX10 High Page:: ( 13 / 16 )

Crysis High – Direct3D

Crysis Performance 1600x1200x32
Card Min FPS Max FPS
ASUS GeForce 9600 GT 17 24
GeForce 8800 GT 512MB 20 26
GeForce 8600 GTS 5 8
GeForce 8800 GTS 320MB 6 18
HIS Radeon HD 3850 TurboX 17 24
GeForce 8800 GT 256MB 3 5
EVGA e-GeForce 9600 GT Superclocked 19 26
BFG GeForce 9600 GT OC 17 24
Palit GeForce 9600 GT Sonic 18 25
Radeon HD 3870 18 27

BioShock DX9 Page:: ( 14 / 16 )

BioShock Performance 1600x1200x32
Card Min FPS Max FPS
ASUS GeForce 9600 GT 27 68
GeForce 8800 GT 512MB 33 77
GeForce 8600 GTS 13 30
GeForce 7900 GS 15 38
GeForce 8800 GTS 320MB 26 67
GeForce 8800 GT 256MB 19 58
EVGA e-GeForce 9600 GT Superclocked 32 74
BFG GeForce 9600 GT OC 29 68
Palit GeForce 9600 GT Sonic 30 74

Power Consumption and Overclocking Page:: ( 15 / 16 )

Conclusion Page:: ( 16 / 16 )

Today’s introduction of the GeForce 9600 GT raises the bar even further.

In comparison to its direct predecessor, the GeForce 8600 GTS, the 9600 GT delivers a performance improvement of 2X in DX9 apps, and often runs 2.5 times faster in DX10 games. This is a phenomenal jump in performance, and as you saw in our benchmarks, the GeForce 9600 GT is even faster than the GeForce 8800 GTS 320MB, which was a $300 graphics card last year. In comparison, GeForce 9600 GT cards are expected to sell anywhere from $169-$229.

When paired up against the competition from AMD, the GeForce 9600 GT continues to perform well. In stock form the GeForce 9600 GT ran up to 28% faster than the overclocked Radeon HD 3850 512MB board from HIS in DX9 apps such as F.E.A.R., Episode Two, and Company of Heroes. Generally as the screen resolution increased in these games, the 3850 closed the gap to as little as 4%. The 3850 delivered superior frame rates in Lost Planet DX9 and in Oblivion, the 9600 GT trailed the HIS card by as much as 6% in Oblivion and about 12% in Lost Planet. The GeForce 9600 GT ran anywhere from 9-12% faster than the Radeon 3850 in Call of Duty 4 as well.

The stock GeForce 9600 GT swept the overclocked Radeon HD 3850 in all of our DirectX 10 benchmarks.

Factory OC’ed boards pulled away even further from the Radeon HD 3870, suggesting that AMD will need to counter these boards with factory OC’ed 3870 cards. A quick glance at Newegg shows that HIS’ own overclocked 3870 board currently sells for $275. Depending on how fast that card is, that price probably needs to come down another $40-$50 to be competitive with the factory OC’ed 9600 GT boards.

Quite honestly, with just 64 stream processors we weren’t expecting much from NVIDIA’s GeForce 9600 GT. We knew it would be a strong competitor to the Radeon HD 3850, but we had no clue it would deliver performance that rivals the GeForce 8800 GT in some cases!

So how did NVIDIA manage to pull it off? Obviously the 9600 GT doesn’t have the pure shading horsepower of the 8800 GT, sporting just 64 stream processors compared to the 8800 GT’s 112, but other than the shading unit deficit the two GPUs are quite similar architecturally. Texture filtering and addressing capabilities are the same, as are the number of ROPs. In addition, they both offer the same peak memory bandwidth and the same z and color compression enhancements. This is important as we’re testing these games with the eye candy cranked up and with AA. In these types of situations, the GPU is often bound by its memory subsystem. Also keep in mind that the 9600 GT sports higher graphics core and stream processor clocks than the 8800 GT.

When you combine this with the OC’ed clocks found on the cards we tested, these 9600 GT cards actually offer more ROP fill and memory bandwidth than a bone stock GeForce 8800 GT board.

With the introduction of the GeForce 9600 GT, NVIDIA’s finally provided a compelling sub-$200 DirectX 10 graphics part. If you’re a gamer on a budget who craves the best performance in DX9 and DX10 games, the GeForce 9600 GT is the best card on the market right now.

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