Only just the other day we looked at the Gigabyte GeForce 9600 GT 512MB TurboForce and today we look at the 1GB version of this card. While we've never been a huge fan of 1GB mid-range video cards, the Gigabyte TurboForce version carrying with it a hefty core and memory increase seemed to help the card out a little bit more. The 512MB version really managed to impress us with some great performance and a well thought out design on the cooler which helped keep our core temperature down to a minimum. While overclocking is something that is generally reserved for actively cooled cards, Gigabyte has shown us that you can have performance and peace in the same package. - TweakTown

Gigabyte GeForce 9600 GT 1GB Turbo Cooler Review

Checking out the box, we have the same purple theme going on with our lovely lady in the back ground doing her thing. Across the top of the box we can see the card is of course a Gigabyte one while the right of the box gives us a line-up of NVIDIA logos. And across the bottom of the box we have some of the main features and above that, the model name. From here we also have a bunch of information on some of the Gigabyte technology on offer such as TurboForce and the multi-core cooling technology. Turning the box over, we get some more details on the technology that is implemented into the graphics card.

With the package out the way, it's time to move onto the card. You can see just how hardcore the cooler is. We can see the heatpipes running behind the fins and through the main heatsink, over the core. We can also see two more heatpipes running to the left of the card that go to more fins and exhausts out the back. The whole design is very impressive and when we last looked at it on the 512MB version of the GeForce 9600 GT edition. Like pretty much all GeForce 9600 GT cards we have seen to date, we have a single PCI Express connector located at the back of the card and a single SLI connector across the top.

We also mentioned in our 512MB article about how we were impressed with the fact that the Gigabyte's heatpipe cooler design doesn't prevent us from making use of SLI technology. As you would suspect with the heatpipe cooler, it does take up another slot and you can see the fins protrude out the back of the card which helps let the heat out. As mentioned earlier, the card is a TurboForce one which means out clock speeds are increased. The core comes in at 720MHz, the shader at 1800MHz and the 1GB of GDDR3 memory at 2000MHz effective. This is a quite healthy increase over the default settings.

While we did pretty consistently see the 1GB model beating out the 512MB one, the gains are just so minimal that ultimately in-game you wouldn't notice the difference between the two. Even extremely intensive games like Crysis at mid-range widescreen show no real performance increase. With that said though, we understand that some people simply can't comprehend that 512MB is going to offer the same performance as 1GB, and since some people are so set on the idea, Gigabyte like most other companies have to offer the option to prevent those buyers from going to another brand, and remain loyal as such.

There is no way we would recommend a 1GB over a 512MB model to anyone, but the fact of the matter is if you're looking for a completely silent GeForce 9600 GT 1GB version then the Gigabyte card is a good choice thanks to the cooling technology in place. While it's not a card we would use, some people are going to love having the option of an overclocked GeForce 9600 GT with 1GB of memory that is completely silent. Fortunately, the hefty overclock that Gigabyte has given the card makes it a worthwhile option over stock clocked GeForce 9600 GT's along with showing just how effective their cooling package is.

We would have loved to have seen a full version game in the package along with a DVI to HDMI adapter, making the card an excellent choice for home theatre PC enthusiasts who want something that can do a bit of gaming while being completely silent. Hopefully Gigabyte make note of this and think about it in future releases.