Sure the NVIDIA's GeForce 9800 series of video cards are the current crème de la crème of gaming performance, but what if you don't have the scratch to afford such a beast? Well that's where the GeForce 9600 series comes in. Foxconn sent us over their pre-overclocked GeForce 9600 GT. As an overclocked card, it should give us a bit more kick than your standard garden variety card. For a few generations now, the mid-range series from NVIDIA generally provide moderate performance at an equally moderate price, and are the cornerstone of many with a budget gaming box. The GeForce 9600 GT graphics chip is no different, offering performance that should get you into most games. - Futurelooks

Foxconn GeForce 9600 GT 512MB OC Edition Review

The video card we're looking at today isn't just a base GeForce 9600 GT. The tweakers over at Foxconn have taken the stock card and have overclocked it to give an extra performance boost. All this is packaged into a single slot design that is said to be both cool and quiet. As for how much of an overclock Foxconn managed to eke out of this card, let's run down the numbers. At stock speeds, the GeForce 9600 GT has a core clock of 650MHz and an effective memory clock of 1800MHz. Foxconn raised these numbers to 700MHz and 2000MHz on the core and memory respectively while sticking to the reference design.

With video cards being of such high performance, vendors have to stick closely to the reference designs. The case with the Foxconn GeForce 9600 GT OC edition is no different, as Foxconn has followed NVIDIA's original layout to the letter. That means a single slot design, with a cooler covering the entire length of the card. Vendors are allowed to add a little bit of flair to the cooler, by way of a decal. Not only is the Foxconn GeForce 9600 GT graphics card slimmer than the GeForce 9800 GTX, but it's much shorter. This should make the card a good choice for small form factor systems where space is at a premium.

We are definitely torn on where we stand with the Foxconn GeForce 9600 GT 512MB OC version, and the GeForce 9600 GT chipset that powers it. The card does post some good performance numbers, and comes in at an awesome price point. However it's performance numbers aren't high enough to make it a contender in some game intensive games based of Microsoft's new DirectX 10 API. It definitely screams value card. The performance of the Foxconn GeForce 9600 GTvideo card does require some explanation. It does more than sufficient in many popular titles, and posts a great price to performance ratio.

The GeForce 9600 GT is unable to beat the GeForce 8800 GTX, but it was never meant to. Add to the good performance the fact that this is an actively cooled card that is extremely quiet, and the appeal of such a product starts to grow. Some might even see the value and scalability in considering this part for an SLI rig on the cheap versus picking up a higher end single GPU. This card's strengths are also its weaknesses. The performance is that of a card at this price point, and should you be building a high-end gaming rig you are going to want to spend the required money on something more robust.

In the end, those are the only sticking points. This is a great card for the price. Should you be building a budget box, or just wanting to get you feet wet with the intentions to upgrade later, it's hard to go wrong with the Foxconn GeForce 9600 GT 512MB OC edition video card. And so it deserves a strong rating from us, and an award for it's awesome value.