NVIDIA and ATI, the two major discrete GPU designers, segment retail costing such that their partners can hit defined price points. In turn, distributors and e-tailers make their margins, leading to the cards you see across the web and brick andmortar stores. Cards attract a premium when launched, reinforcing the supply versus demand model, but competition inevitably drives them lower. Over time, too, newer SKU's supplant present ones, pushing the cost to you, the consumer, even lower. Trawling the web today, around $150 will be enough to purchase a GeForce 9600 GT 512MB or even a Radeon HD 3870 512MB card. Spend just a little more and a GeForce 8800 GT can be yours. - Hexus
While the average PC enthusiast may gawk endlessly over pages of reviews of high-end power hungry graphics cards, jaw slackened by the frame rates and 3DMark score that they might find, at the end of the month it is the low to mid-range card that is purchased most often than not. Price typically comes into consideration, but it's not the only concern. Availability, compatibility and other issues factor in to a buyers decision as well. Sometimes it simply boils down to the fact that the average Joe clearing stages in Peggle or watching the latest videos on YouTube simply doesn't need all of that horsepower. AMD's Radeon HD 3650 is one of the cards that can satisfy mainstream users. - HotHardware
As you all have seen, XFX has become a household name in the PC industry and they have taken major strides to become a worldwide player in the graphics card and motherboard game. They have market shares just about everywhere and have begun to really expand their sales across the globe. It seems as if the Alpha Dog series will be now become the second fastest of their card line as the new Black Edition becomes the top dog of the XFX lineup. We are not sure exactly how many of the different chipsets will meet the criteria to make the Black Edition, but we currently know that the GeForce 9800 GX2 and GTX are two chipsets we will see right now, that can make it. - Gamepyre
We saw MSI mix it up just the other week with the GeForce 9600 GT video card by overclocking it and going down the aftermarket cooler route. Aesthetically speaking, the video card really didn't do a lot for us, but as we dived deeper into the testing of the card we became pleasantly surprised by the performance the cooler offered. The latest GeForce 9600 GT variant from MSI sports the same cooler along with an extra 512MB of GDDR3 memory, giving us a grand total of 1GB memory. The graphics card also carries with it the same overclock we saw on the 512MB model which should aid in getting some extra performance over the various stock clocked offerings from other manufacturers. - TweakTown
When scaling from one GPU to two doesn't necessarily result in doubling the performance as we've seen in countless SLI and CrossFire articles. But what happens when you add a third GPU to the mix? That is what we're going to find out today by putting three GeForce 9800 GTX cards together. If you remember, we weren't too impressed by the GeForce 9800 GTX as a single card but it won us over in SLI mode. With one more GeForce 9800 GTX, we'll find out how the current crop of games scale. We're not comparing the GeForce 9800 GTX 3-Way SLI to other competing products, though we will compared the amount of cards with each other to see the scaling and the performance impact. - t-break
What happens when you take a Radeon HD 3870 graphics card and slap a gigabyte of memory on it? That is the question of the hour, since our subject is Diamond's new card with just such a configuration. The Radeon HD 3870 has established itself as a pretty decent option among mid-range graphics cards, although it's squeezed by formidable competition from NVIDIA. Could doubling up on video memory allow the Radeon HD 3870 to distinguish itself from the likes of the GeForce 9600 GT and GeForce 8800 GT cards? Diamond's new take on the Radeon HD 3870 doesn't depart too radically from the established formula. The card comes with a default GPU clock of 830MHz. - TechReport
The latest GeForce 9800 GX2 incarnation to make its way into the labs comes from Gigabyte and carries with it all the standard goodies that we expect out of the GeForce 9800 GX2. The latest GeForce 9 series of NVIDIA cards have impressed us, but like we've said all along they haven't offered the revolutionary jump that we thought the GeForce 9 series would offer. With the standard clocks and cooler there isn't going to be a whole lot out of the ordinary, and it is frankly just following the reference design which has been applied by all brands, but we will check out the bundle and box to see if there is anything that gets our tails wagging. As there has to be something setting it apart. - TweakTown
When we took the initial look at the GeForce 9800 GTX from NVIDIA, we were far from impressed. Over its previous counterpart the GeForce 8800 GTX, there was not much improvement in performance while the prices were about the same as AMD's dual-GPU based Radeon HD 3870 X2 cards which we preferred. Today, we set two of these cards in SLI and we did a quick check for online priced before the article. Surprisingly, these cards are available for as low as $300 in the US which means that sooner than later, the local market will also see a price drop. With some lowering of the price tag, two of these do look very promising. Lets find out how two GeForce 9800 GTX cards in SLI perform. - t-break
The GeForce 9800 GTX cards hit the market on the 1st of April, but things really got interesting on the 8th of April when NVIDIA gave an official nod for their partners to start selling overclocked cards. EVGA is one of the companies that wouldn't let such an opportunity pass by, and on that day we found out the clocks of their fastest EVGA e-GeForce 9800 GTX SSC edition card. The super superclocked GeForce 9800 GTX runs at 770MHz, which is super high compared to reference 675MHz. We've seen other partners offering overclocked cards but none of them, including EVGA, dared to go further than 770MHz. And after all, Maserati might not be the cheapest car, but definitely a great choice. - FudZilla
EVGA is one of the top sellers of video cards in the US for retail cards at stores like BestBuy and Fry's. Along with XFX, EVGA builds video cards based upon NVIDIA video chips and has excellent service and support. NVIDIA introduced the GeForce 8800 GT video card late last year. Released with a total of 112 stream processors, the GeForce 8800 GT was a new version of the GeForce 8800 GTX with some minor modifications to the core that resulted in performance that was nearly the same. In fact EVGA released many versions of the GeForce 8800 GT including a SuperClocked version and now the Akimbo version with an embedded improved cooling solution, to be even more competitive. - Gamepyre
You did your research well the last couple of days and you've discovered that the GeForce 8800 GT continues to be one of the best value for money cards when it comes to good mid-range performance. The thing is, you wouldn't mind kicking it up a notch in the memory department if you had the choice. Well, we might have found the card for you today. ASUS has recently released a GeForce 8800 GT that is packing 1GB of GDDR3 memory. However, it's not uncommon for a bump in memory which does nothing more than make you feel a bit better about your system. There's only one way to find out if the extra memory does anything for your gaming experience, run it through a multitude of tests. - TweakTown
What would we do without capable graphics cards? Well for one thing, we would all be stuck with Consoles and all the same console physics. Even worse, video game creators would be limited to the game content or be unable to continue making advancements making game play better and better. Now that's a scary thought. Thankfully, there's just too much interest from all kinds of video game players around the world. They may even own a gaming console or two on top of their own desktop computer. But, there's just so much more game creators can integrate in to computer games that can seemingly give an original and/or new experience each time you play. - Virtual-Hideout
Getting components to work together in groups has been a constant theme in the evolution of computer technology over the last several years. Implementing dual channel memory, multi-core processors, and hard drives in RAID arrays allows for greater system performance and prove that the concept of teamwork doesn't apply just to people. Graphics cards have also taken advantage of this idea, as both SLI and CrossFire setups have become increasingly popular with computer enthusiasts since coupling the power of two or more graphics cards can greatly improve performance. The latest and greatest cards from both NVIDIA and ATI take this idea to the next level. - BigBruin
When NVIDIA released the G80 core in late 2006 the enthusiast world rejoiced. New levels of image quality were in reach with a single card that used to require two or more. The mainstream market anxiously awaited its share of the G80 love only to be disappointed by the lackluster GeForce 8600 series. Fastforward to last year when the world was given the G92 core. Even more peformance was to be had by enthusiasts willing to shell out the $250 or more it would take to enjoy the pleasure of gaming on a GeForce 8800 GT or GTS edition. Finally, we were given the card that all of us could afford and not be ashamed to put in our signature. The GeForce 9600 GT from NVIDIA was just that card. - Bjorn3D
The GeForce 9600 GT from NVIDIA is a pretty decent GPU as far as the price to performance ratio is concerned and thus its no surprise to see many vendors jumping on it. The GeForce 9600 GT is bringing a new mid-range graphics card that will be replacing the GeForce 8600 GT, and lifting the gaming experience to the next level. This is actually the second card in the new GeForce 9 series that NVIDIA brought on the market. Today we take a look at one such card from Leadtek modeled as WinFast PX9600 GT with 512MB memory. When looking at its specifications, the WinFast PX9600 GT version runs at stock speed as per NVIDIA's specifications with nothing overclocked. - t-break
Today we look at a product from the wicked folks at Inno3D. Earlier on at launch time we already checked out their OC model GeForce 8800 GT, today we'll have a look at that other product line from Inno3D, the one that is so much treasured by our audience, the iChill version. The iChill basically boils down towards a better software bundle, cooling, a decent overclock and a nice price. Within the Inno3D iChill range of products however, there are several product lines with different cooling options. Some cards have Zalman cooling, the others have Arctic Cooling products cooling the cards. Today's model has is a cooler with active fan called that originates from Arctic Cooling pre-applied for you.- Guru3D
EVGA has been kind enough to send us a sample of their fastest GeForce 9800 GTX card, the e-GeForce 9800 GTX SSC edition running at 770MHz. This is one of the few GeForce 9800 GTX cards whose frequencies exceed 750MHz, and there was even some talk that no company would sell this cards at such high clocks. The card's reference speed is 675MHz, so EVGA overclocked it by as much as 95MHz. Of course, we immediately installed it and put it through its paces, and the result we got in 3DMark06 was around 12793 marks. Compared to reference card's results in the same benchmark, the EVGA e-GeForce 9800 GTX SSC's result is better by about four percent. - FudZilla
No so long ago we saw the introduction of the Radeon HD 3870 X2 graphics card which is actually a high-end dual-GPU monster deducted from the Radeon HD 3870 graphics card. The Radeon HD 3800 series have brought a smile on many ATI enthusiasts who gotten a bit disappointed by the Radeon HD 2900 fiasco, if we can express in that way. So ATI went back to the design table and came up with a better and cheaper RV670 chip which brought back some competition with NVIDIA and also lowered the price extensively for some excellent performing video cards. Next, was to also come up with a better mid-range products and that is where the Radeon HD 3650 comes into the picture.
On 8th of April, NVIDIA gave their partners a green light on selling overclocked GeForce 9800 GTX cards. Hours later, we already have received a bunch of links to various GeForce 9800 GTX cards running at speeds higher than reference 675MHz. If you're keeping up with the latest equipment, you should already know that the GeForce 9800 GTX card is a good overclocker and that pushing it up to 800MHz is a piece of cake. We will demonstrate that with some help from our XFX GeForce 9800 GTX edition. The GeForce 9800 GTX is the latest card on the market and just like the GeForce 8800 GTS 512MB it's based on the G92 GPU, built at 65nm process and packing 754 million transistors. - FudZilla
It was no joke when NVIDIA launched their GeForce 9800 GTX on April the 1st, and they did so with success. While nothing rather new from a technological or performance point of view, we did notice two very important facts with the release. The first is a reasonably priced strategy for a product performing as well as a GeForce 8800 GTX, the second a pretty hefty overclocking headroom. That last factor, ever since the last couple of years, has been a growing market for manufacturers and board partners like BFG. They offer you a pretty extensive line of products with several gradations on the product clock speed. You know their OC versions, yet recently an OCX version was introduced as well. - Guru3D
Overclocking these days is great. While many years ago it used to be reserved for only the most knowledgeable of computer enthusiasts, these days with so many software programs out there, overclocking can literally be done by anyone. One of the easiest components to get overclocked in your system is the graphics card, thanks to programs like RivaTuner and ATITool. With a few sliders and a bit of patience you can be getting those much needed extra frames that let you crank the detail up a little bit more or just give you an overall smoother gaming experience. The overclocking card of choice today is the GeForce 9800 GTX version which has been out for just over a week. - TweakTown
With newer games getting more and more demanding, the amount of frame buffer available to the GPU has been on a continuous rise. However, as we saw in the previous ASUS Extreme N8800 GT 1GB edition article, it doesn't always help to equip your graphics card with more buffer memory than the reference design of a manufacturer. Today, we see MSI going down that road with their 1GB version of the GeForce 9600 GT graphics card. Though unlike ASUS, besides adding more memory, MSI has also added more speed to the card by overclocking its core to 675MHz and outfitted it with a custom heatsink. The question that remains to be answered, does it get the job done and does it provide added value? - t-break
The NVIDIA high-end video card product range has once again been updated. Dubbed GeForce 9800 GTX, we were wondering what this new product has to offer us compared to the other video cards currently available on the market. Gainward offered us their BLISS 9800 GTX version, based on the reference specifications this is how NVIDIA originally introduced their card. Gainward is a world leading producer of high-quality, high-end 3D accelerators for the personal computer market. Gainward offers a full product line of value adding products targeting gaming enthusiasts as well as entry-level consumers. We just need to find out how cool and quiet this new high-end video card really is. - Madshrimps
XFX has made a solid place for themselves in the graphics card community and the dog has put many other companies in the dog house, especially when it comes to performance based video cards for the gamers who like top end products. The mid level market is usually the sweet spot for buyers and the new GeForce 9600 GT series is pretty much the leader in this race as its price versus performance ratio is excellent. This new overclocked version is set to be the highest end graphics card in the GeForce 9600 GT series of cards and will offer an exceptional bundle which includes the Call of Duty 4 game, which is one freaking hot gaming title and offering great SLI performance. - Motherboards
If you're looking for a GeForce 9600 GT card, the chances are we can give you a pretty good idea of which one to get. We get a lot of samples, but the GeForce 9600 GT would have to be one product that we've received over and over again from different companies who are mixing it up with big clocks and bigger coolers. The latest GeForce 9600 GT to make its way into the labs is from ASUS and carries with it some stock clocks, but also has a mean looking cooler that we've seen before. We've been happy with the GeForce 9600 GT series ever since its interception, and it's managed to receive a number of awards. Let's see if ASUS can impress us with their incarnation of the card. - TweakTown
Gainward has been kind enough to supply us with their latest graphics card, the GeForce 9800 GTX, a video card that's only a couple of days old. Their Gainward BLISS 9800 GTX is Tri-SLI ready, has HybridPower, it's good for multimedia, but it excels in gaming. This first version from Gainward is following the reference design as set by NVIDIA, though we can expect a Golden Sample as well in the near future. It is a king of strategy to first follow the design as outlined, and afterwards return back to the table and come up with a better and faster version. And on that aspect Gainward is not alone as many other brands follow the same approach and come up with a faster version with a premium price tag. - FudZilla
PNY 9600GT PCIe 512MB - Rev 01
