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
Final Words
Thankfully, those who spend less than $200 on their new graphics hardware will finally have a reason to upgrade. AMD's introduction of the Radeon HD 3850 handled that nicely on their end a few months back, and NVIDIA has now followed suit with a part that brings competition back to another market segment. Something we haven't had a good amount of for a very long time now and we are certainly thankful for its return.
We have heard murmurs that AMD will be lowering prices on their HD 3000 series, but we don't have any firm details as of yet. If this is the case, then we may see stronger competition at the lower end of the spectrum when looking at the high end Radeon HD 3850 parts. We will be doing a follow up next week looking at the 512MB versions of the 3850 and the GeForce 8800 GT in order to answer some questions we have following these tests.
From what we have seen, price, clock speed, memory size, and features are going to be the selling points here rather than which company designed the GPU. Of course, if AMD does drop its price, they could very likely have a winner on their hand. Especially if we find out that the 512MB part helps to smooth over some of the rough spots we've seen with the 3850 so far. Before we can wrap this up with a neat little bow, we simply have to answer a couple more questions and wait and see what happens with price.
Rather than seeing the fact that we need more info as a bad thing, we are very grateful that we have this problem: the competition is hot enough to push both NVIDIA and AMD to do all they can to provide the best value for the consumer. And the real winner in that situation is everyone in the market for a graphics card under $200.
Update: AMD has cut prices on its Radeon HD 3800 series, to see how this changes things take a look at our price-performance comparison here.
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ritalinkid18 - Monday, February 25, 2008 - link
I think this review underestimated the price difference. The key here is cost. It said that cost wasn't a factor when comparing the two in question, but then used as a factor when comparing the SSC to the 8800 gt. The 8800gt's pricetag makes cost a big factor.Not to mention the SLI vs Crossfire, which is undoubtably the 9600gt's win. ( Case and point: http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3234...">http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3234... ) This may be about cost and a cost saving upgrade down the road should be included.
The fact that the 9600gt is the clear winner here in completely understated.
7Enigma - Monday, February 25, 2008 - link
Derek and Anand I had a quick question. I, like several others, would have preferred you to have a high(er) end card like the 3870 or 8800GTS (or even just the 512meg version of the GT). I understand the purpose of the review is to show mid-range cards, but its the SLI configuration that annoys me.In a recent Daily Tech article the author eludes to 2 of these 9600's in SLI being a "better" value than a single more expensive GTS (since the 9600's would technically be less expensive). The problem with this statement as we all know is that it is software dependent on whether the extra card will actually be implemented well. Otherwise you have a single 9600 that would get blown away by a GTS. Unfortunately less informed readers of DT that then come over to Anandtech for the review would be shown the 9600 in SLI as the leader.
I understand you don't want to muddy the graphs/charts with the last 100 video cards you have reviewed, so here is my question:
7Enigma - Monday, February 25, 2008 - link
While its great to use the latest and greatest CPU/RAM/Mobo (to make sure the system is GPU constrained), is it possible to stick with a static testbed for at least a couple months (say 3-6)?
Reason being, right now if you had not switched from a QX9650 to a QX9775 between your last review (3870X2), and not switched from Vista 32-bit to 64-bit, we could possibly check back and compare to previous reviews to do our own comparisons. I understand driver revisions are going to still be a factor but as long as we don't see large differences in performance between the drivers it could be a good comparison.
7Enigma - Monday, February 25, 2008 - link
To keep things even more consistent between reviews just keep a HD image of the drive and reformat back to the same static testbed whenever doing a video card review (more expensive but easier would be just a HD swap). We understand you cannot have a dedicated system that doesn't do anything but review video cards, but if you could quickly just swap out a HD or reformat to the same state as a previous review that would end these constant questions about, "Why didn't you test so and so?".
You could then say, "Look it up yourself!"
Here's the quote from the DT article in question:
"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."
7Enigma - Monday, February 25, 2008 - link
test7Enigma - Monday, February 25, 2008 - link
Testjamynn - Monday, February 25, 2008 - link
Why are the results for Crysis, Oblivion and Quake Wars 880GT 256 so much lower in this article than they are in their original review in this article? http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3175...">http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3175...Definetly makes the 880GT256 look alot worse than it originally tested. Looks Suspicous.
MadBoris - Saturday, February 23, 2008 - link
Ok, I was waiting for this review to popup on the home page but it never did on my visits why is that?It seems now I have to scour the site, in this case the video section, to look for it on some whim. The home page has really become disappointing, sometimes it shows an interesting blog but doesn't include this review, the home page is doing a disservice to visitors. I hope you guys can fix that or start sending all new content to the home page.
Secondly, I would have really liked a comparison to the 8800GT 512 in this review, the question to me is the 8800GT 512, for only $20 - $30 more, worth it over this card.
niva - Friday, February 22, 2008 - link
I still have my Tyan Tachion 9700 Pro in my 6 year old system and runs just fine and I use every day for office/email/internet and gaming! Of course I don't run any of the stupid games which require new gen cards. I'll keep it until it dies I think. Ultimate card evar though at the time it came it was high end as heck!Seriously though, we should all be happy that we actually HAVE a mid-price range market now. I am, thanks Nvidia!
Groovester - Thursday, February 21, 2008 - link
It seems strange that no mention was made of the 8800GS card. Perhaps it wasn't available when AT decided to test the 9600, but it would be nice had they tested the two. After all, they are NVidia's two newest mid-range video cards. According to the 8800GS specs, if they are going to retail for about the same price, it looks like the 8800GS would perform better. And I doubt that I would be using the new color "saturater" of the 9600.