Bringing Competition to Midrange: The GeForce 9600 GT Raises NVIDIA's Sub $200 Bar
by Derek Wilson on February 21, 2008 9:00 AM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Performance
Version: 1.0005
Settings: full dynamic lighting, everything maxed without AA
and no grass shadows.
With the graphics setting turned as far up as we could get them, video memory does seem to be a very important factor in performance. Our 256MB parts simply tanked this benchmark. Getting playability out of this game involves turning down the lighting distance at least (as it doesn't have a huge visual impact) and possibly turning off or down some of the shadow settings.
For this test, we walk in a straight line for about 30 seconds and use FRAPS to measure performance. We use the same save game every time and the path doesn't change. Our performance measurements are very consistent between runs. We do two runs and take the second.
The 256mb Radeon HD 3850 and GeForce 8800 GT clearly suffer from lack of memory in this case. Of course, the 9600 GT actually outperforms the 3870, so we know it isn't all about the framebuffer, but we would absolutely expect the 512MB 8800 GT to outperform the 9600 GT here as well. Crossfire doesn't seem to help out ATI much here, but SLI provides as close to linear scaling as is possible, which is a nice thing if S.T.A.L.K.E.R. is your game of choice (and with Clear Sky on the horizon).
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pmonti80 - Friday, February 22, 2008 - link
That's probably becuase it's a transicional product, in one or two months you won't be able to buy one.poohbear - Thursday, February 21, 2008 - link
nice review, but i expected to see more cards compared with the 9600gt from a site like anandtech, especially the 8800gt 512mb version which everybody's been buying. are you guys on a budget or something?anachreon - Thursday, February 21, 2008 - link
Somehow this review feels a little sloppier than the past AnandTech video card reviews I have come to trust. The cards represented in various tests are inconsistent, and the lack of a 512mb 8800 GT, as well as AA and AF, in the tests is baffling.DerekWilson - Friday, February 22, 2008 - link
I don't understand what you mean about the cards represented being inconsistent. We tested the exact same six cards in every tests and the same 2 multiGPU configurations as well ... the only graph that lacks anything is the WiC 16x12 graph because we could not get the 3850 to complete the benchmark at that resolution.The 512 MB 8800 GT isn't really in competition with these cards in terms of price. Since AMD dropped the price so dramatically, it's more of a direct comparison, and if we had known before hand we would have included something else from the next price point up (like the 512MB 8800 GT).
We can't test everything for every review, and we've got to make trade offs. Sometimes we make the wrong call, and not including the 512MB 8800 GT was one of those time. We'll certainly include it in follow up testing.
Thanks,
Derek Wilson
pmonti80 - Friday, February 22, 2008 - link
Dereck I think what he means is that at 1st sight the results are little bit strange. I had to check several reviews to see that the results are the same (how could i ever doubt you? ;)).An example of strange results at 1st sight is the 256MB 8800GT. Also the fact that filters give an advantage to the 9600 GT and the test without filters give an advantage to the 3870.
GTaudiophile - Thursday, February 21, 2008 - link
So if I have a eVGA GeForce 7900GT, which would be the better upgrade? A 8800 GT with 512MB RAM or a 9600GT? Can you get a 9600GT with 512MB RAM?xsilver - Thursday, February 21, 2008 - link
7900gt to 9600gt wouldnt be a colossal upgrade. It would probably be better to get the 8800gt or 8800gts otherwise stick it out with what you've got until the next 9xxx part rolls around.LoneWolf15 - Thursday, February 21, 2008 - link
No AA/AF makes these benchmarks nearly useless. Also, while Oblivion is a great game, it is now a dated game, and no longer a good standard to measure cards by.I'm sorry, but I couldn't base a buying decision off of this review.
semo - Thursday, February 21, 2008 - link
wouldn't it be better to put in 2 higher clocked dual core processors. aren't 4 cores more than enough for games today?peldor - Thursday, February 21, 2008 - link
What's up with no AA tests at all and in some cases no AF? Seems like half a review without those.