The ninth generation of NVIDIA's GeForce series is now here. It's amazing how fast GPU technology develops. Time marches on, and video card technology races into the future. The difference between the state of the gaming art in 2008, and the state of the gaming art in 2004, is downright incredible. What future games will look like will be even harder to believe and today, we are one small step closer to this future, as the 8th generation of NVIDIA's GeForce passes into the 9th. The GeForce 9600 GT series is aimed to dominate the mid-range of graphics card options, and we are going to check out in depth. And we also have some SLI numbers to look at, so hang on to your hats. - NeoSeeker

Palit GeForce 9600 GT 512MB Sonic Graphics Review

While the competition between the $170 and $235 mark is fierce with NVIDIA's GeForce 8800 GT 256MB and 512MB versions, and ATI's recently price cut Radeon HD 3850 and Radeon HD 3870 in the fray, the competition is just about to go up another notch. The GeForce 9600 GT will be priced around $190 initially, putting it right into the thick of things. Our Palit GeForce 9600 GT Sonic will be retailing for a little bit more than this standard GeForce 9600 GT price, at a rated price of $219, but it is not a standard GeForce 9600 GT. Perhaps not as concept smashing as was the release of the GeForce 8800 design GTX though.

There is nothing that stands out as revolutionary in the design of the GeForce 9600 GT instead, this latest release from NVIDIA is just one more incrementally improved and further optimized step along the road of graphical goodness. Truth be told, the GeForce 9600 GT does not look like that much of a departure from the GeForce 8800 GT as they look quite similar. At the heart of the GeForce 9600 GT, we have the G94 GPU. NVIDIA believes that one of the strongest new features of the GeForce 9600 GT design is the optimization of the G94's stream processors which operate at a much greater frequency.

While the reference design GeForce 9600 GT looks a lot like a standard GeForce 8800 GT, the Palit GeForce 9600 GT Sonic looks like neither. The first thing you'll notice about the GeForce 9600 GT Sonic is its rather startling, attention grabbing orange plastic cage that encloses the video card. While the reference design has a single slot design, the Sonic edition is definitely a double width card. From what we can see, the plastic cage does little to direct the cooling air coming from the fan towards the surface of the PCB. Instead of directing hot air out of the rear of your card, air flows from the fan in all directions.

The cooling solution on the Palit GeForce 9600 GT Sonic looked fairly effective, so overclocking prospects looked good. Although the Palit GeForce 9600 GT Sonic edition is a factory overclocked model, with the core clock boost of 50MHz, a memory clock increase of 200MHz and a hearty shader clock push of 125MHz, we were hoping that we'd people push it to even further heights. Although the card could run for some time at an impressive 784/2194MHz setting, it was not stable at this high speeds. It wasn't until we went down to 760/2168MHz that the card was able to complete a hour of intensive activity.

Its a good time to be a PC gamer with $200 bucks burning a hole in your pocket. It has been a long time since their has been so many viable options for mid-range cards. One thing is clear, the GeForce 9600 GT is far superior to the GeForce 8600 GTS, and has both the performance and price of a winner at around the $200 mark. While the last generation mid-range cards were handicapped by a 128-bit memory interface, the GeForce 9600GT is a very capable card, with enough power to satisfy the demands of most gamers, at common resolutions and offering good performance for the price.

When compared to the ATI options, both the Radeon HD 3850 and Radeon HD 3870 things get interesting. When we started our article, the GeForce 9600 GT would easily be the better deal. But things change quickly. Although ATI is not releasing any new cards to compete with the GeForce 9600 GT over the next little while, they did do something to throw a monkey wrench at NVIDIA's new ninth generation card. They dropped the price of the Radeon HD 3870 by a whopping $55, and the price of the Radeon HD 3850 by $30. With these prices cuts, the Radeon HD 3870 stands up well against the GeForce 9600 GT.

If a Palit GeForce 9600 GT Sonic was on the shelf in front of us, we'd be inclined to go for it. While it is so far the only GeForce 9600 GT we've had the chance to check out, by all appearances, Palit seemed to have done a top-drawer job on it. The overclock is pretty good, the 3-phase power is a nice bonus, and you get all those lovely ports, which some people will find very handy indeed. Additionally, Palit offers a 3 year warranty, which is always reassuring to have. For the $30 dollars above the price of a vanilla GeForce 9600 GT, the Sonic edition seems a solid choice, and is recommended.