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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ChronoReverse - Friday, February 22, 2008 - link
The 7950's can't beat the x1950's much less the 7900 series. The gap has only widen as more modern games came out.Aberforth - Thursday, February 21, 2008 - link
Crysis benchmark @ medium settings? gimme a break, Obviously this review is designed to show 9600GT in good light.rcc - Thursday, February 21, 2008 - link
As I read it, it's designed to show how it compares to similar cards. Sure they could provide test in in Crysis at full settings, but it's a bit like providing grand prix lap times on a Tercel.Staples - Thursday, February 21, 2008 - link
Either that or this was done very sloppy. The 8800GT 256 is mysteriously missing in all the benchmark which do not require a lot of video memory. In these tests, the 8800GT 256MB would win. I smell a rat.Kurotetsu - Thursday, February 21, 2008 - link
"The benchmarks don't prop up the card I bought so it must be bogus!"If the 3850 was leading in that test, you wouldn't be complaining at all.
Griswold - Thursday, February 21, 2008 - link
(_,_)pmonti80 - Thursday, February 21, 2008 - link
It's just a review made at the kind of settings most of the cards analized will be used. How useful can be a review were the cards are around 15 fps?ncage - Thursday, February 21, 2008 - link
For those who want a more lengthy writeup with more games tested and a bigger selection of video cards then check out the review at tomshardware. I wanted a comparison between the 8800GT 512MB & the 9600GT which is available at toms. I will tell you they are pretty close in benchmark numbers but the 8800GT still wins in every case which im quite happy about since i just bought a 8800GT :). We will see how good value the 9600GT is after the etailers do their price gouging. Still Nvidia is doing a VERY good job in bring competition to the market.knitecrow - Thursday, February 21, 2008 - link
bah... i am not going back to tom for anythingmurphyslabrat - Thursday, February 21, 2008 - link
I am sure this is on everyone's mind: overclock the thing already!