The NVIDIA rumours have abounded and been promising something new for a little while now. Instead of going straight in at the top end, NVIDIA have decided that they will beef up their mid-range, which is obviously the highest selling of their add in cards. This makes sense, especially after ATI released a couple of stonking cards in this price range, like the Radeon HD 3850 and the Radeon HD 3870 series video cards. We've got an ASUS card in the labs for some serious testing, and by that we mean a GeForce 9600 GT which is following the ASUS traditions oon layout and features. And before we start to dig deeper into the technology behind, let's look at what we've got. - Overclock3D

ASUS Extreme N9600 GT 512MB Edition Card Review

Yes, that right, NVIDIA haven't exactly done a lot from their last GeForce 8800 GT incarnation. The new G94 is basically half a G92 chip, armed with 64 shaders and the same 256-bit memory architecture. The GeForce 9600 GT doesn't break a lot of moulds when it comes to features. This particular GeForce 9600 GT from ASUS comes stacked with 512MB of GDDR3 memory and a stock clock of 650MHz. The Samsung 1.0ns memory is clocked to 1800MHz, although it should be capable of running 2000MHz effective. Armed also with 1650MHz stream processors, there's certainly still some speed in this baby.

It's also worth mentioning that NVIDIA have done a lot of work on the GeForce 9600 GT to get SLI working well with the chips, one of the downfall's of the GeForce 8600 GT. ASUS have kept roughly the same packaging we've seen recently from them with a CGI female character on the front of the box and the rest looking pretty business like. The packaging this time is lime green and should be pretty stand out on the shelves. Inside of the box we see that ASUS have done their usual job of keeping the graphics card nice and safe, which is reassuring. As usual, ASUS do not disappoint us with the box.

ASUS have gone with a proprietary cooler for their Extreme N9600 GT. This is a cooler not dissimilar to a lot of recent Zalman's efforts and should cool the card sufficiently. The PCB is a blue green colour and comes with the memory chips uncovered. All capacitors on the board are high quality Japanese solid state caps so you shouldn't have a problem with longevity there. There's not a whole lot remarkable apart from the cooler to point out. The card isn't unattractive and the green and gold actually compliment each other. The PCB is much cleaner than we've seen with the G92 based graphics cards.

The GeForce 9600 GT leaves us a little confused if we are honest. The reason being is that NVIDIA knows how the Radeon HD 3850 performs. They know what numbers it puts out and yet they made a card that basically rivalled it rather than beat it. Sure, we know that it is very close and so much so that it could come down to personal choice, but it still erks us somewhat that NVIDIA are relying on their loyal fanbase to buy cards that lose out to ATI's current generation. The ASUS Extreme N9600 GT is suggested to go out at about $200, which is slightly more than the quicker Radeon HD 3850's.

That means that even though the ATI card we used was not stock clocked, it is still cheaper than this GeForce 9600 GT and armed with the same features. As such it leaves this card a little in no mans land as far as pricing and performance. We're also aware that pricing will drop after launch, but there's just something in the back of our mind that leaves me wanting more. Either way, looking at performance and pricing, we don't think we can recommend the ASUS Extreme N9600 GT for you to buy right now, perhaps a price cut or two down the line will change our mind.