As horrible looking as the MSI cooler on the GeForce 9600 GT is, there's no denying that it does a fantastic job of cooling the core. It seems that MSI has decided to kick it up a notch with a new cooler named Hybrid Freezer. It's always nice to see companies mix it up with new coolers, and the Hybrid Freezer seems to have some pretty nice cool technology behind it. It makes sense that they're installing it on the popular GeForce 9600 GT series of card, and in this case MSI has decided to install it on a card carrying with it 1GB of GDDR3 memory for added appeal. While we've looked at so many GeForce 9600 GT's, you have to admit that we've seen such a huge variety of different models. - TweakTown

MSI GeForce 9600 GT Hybrid Freezer Version Review

Today we add another to the pile and find out if the cooler on the new MSI GeForce 9600 GT is able to stand out from the pack. Considering the MSI cooler we've seen before is one of the best as far as performance goes, it seems that the Hybrid Freezer's ultimate competition is from the same manufacturer. While we have a pretty standard layout, the design has been upped and follows a blue and black theme across the box. The front of the box has a big picture of the cooler and all the standard information you're used to seeing. Across the top we have the company logo and to the right of that we have some NVIDIA logo's.

Towards the middle we have a reflective Hybrid Freezer logo that stands out, under that we have the model and below that we have a bit of a blurb on the cooler itself. We top it off with some of the main features of the card along with the mention that it's an overclocked model down the very bottom. Turning the box over, we have a lot of information on the actual card, specifically what the cooler is and how it works. This is actually a very nice point of MSI to provide this extra piece of the puzzle on the cooling solution. We have some of the main features below that along with little bits of other information over the box.

Pulling the card out of the box and you instantly notice the cooler and just how funky it looks. Like most coolers these days, it takes up the majority of the card and you can see the copper heatpipes coming out the bottom and moving up through the aluminum fins. One of the stand-out points, though, would have to be the grill over the fan in the middle which just looks great. We also have a wealth of information on the cooler, again explaining what it does along with the brand, model and Hybrid Freezer branding. While the graphics card does use a funky red PCB, the overall design is very standard all up to the SLI connection.

We actually received this card before it hit the mainstream market, so at the moment it carries with it just the default clocks, which are a 650MHz core, 1625MHz shader and 1800MHz effective memory clock. By the time the product does hit the retail market, it will have an overclock in place. Since the card isn't really of final specification, we won't give it a rating. But we have to admit that the Hybrid Freezer technology MSI has on offer is looking pretty impressive. The cooler alone looks very cool and the design on a whole seems excellent as such. Hopefully it's something we see more of in the MSI design.

Before we ramble on about all the great features of the card, the choice to currently restrict the cooler to the 1GB model is a bit disappointing. While it's good the option is there at all, the decision to place it on the 512MB model will represent better value for your money. The GeForce 9600 GT is an excellent performing card, but in all fairness it really isn't up there with the likes of some of the high-end models that are actually able to make use of the extra memory on board. It doesn't matter that the performance increase is really non-existent, people just like to say that they have 1GB of graphics card memory on hand.

Now we just have to hope that MSI go for a decent overclock, which we're sure they will if past experience is anything to go by. The current crop of GeForce 9600 GT overclocked cards from MSI come with a 700MHz core and 1900MHz effective memory clock. Hopefully we see at least 2000MHz on the memory clock with this new model, and maybe another 20MHz on the core to really make the card stand out. Hopefully we see more cards in the MSI family pick up on the Hybrid Freezer technology soon, because it really has the ability to impress.