Well, in the past couple of months, we have seen numerous changes in the field of graphics hardware resulting in significant and rapid price drops. The GeForce 9600 GT is no exception, and you can find vanilla versions at $110. Overclocked and cards with non reference cooling are common, but there's only one called GeForce 9600 GT Hybrid Freezer. This card is made by MSI and named after an interesting cooler feature, the cooler is hybrid, active and passive, so meaning it runs when it's needed and powers down when not. Let us clarify, the sensors on the cooler's base are constantly measuring temperatures, so when they exceed a certain threshold, the fan starts spinning. - FudZilla

MSI GeForce 9600 GT Hybrid Freezer Version Review

The fan will keep running until temperatures revert to safe limits and will then power down. In passive operation, Hybrid Freezer cooler is, of course inaudible. In order to keep the GPU temperatures in check, Hybrid Freezer packs four heatpipes which transfer the heat from the base to the heatsink. Densely placed thin aluminum fins take care of heat dissipation. Still, with such small dissipation surface, it's impossible to make Hybrid Freezer run in passive mode all the time. The graphics processor, just like any processor for that matter, doesn't like high temperatures, so temperatures are constantly measured.

MSI went that extra mile and really pimped their cooler and a careful choice of the font and writings on the plastic is proof of that. The box, which we will show you later on, also features important information on this graphics card. One of the emphasized signs is the one telling users not to panic if their fans stops running, as this is not a defect, but caution is still advised as the heatpipe can get really hot. The only downside to this passive or active operation is the point when the card switches from complete silence to audible operation. The fan is not too loud and it runs for only a couple of minutes, but no more golden silence.

The MSI GeForce 9600 GT Hybrid Freezer version runs at 700MHz, which is 50MHz higher than reference, whereas memory was left unchanged at 1800MHz, but the video card packs 1GB of it. The card, just like the other cards in this generation, features an SLI connector that enables for some nice gaming power provided you include a second card. The card is powered via a 6-pin power connector located on the end of the card. It's been a long time since we've tested such an interesting card, and this card is special due to Hybrid Freezer cooling. And special due to the dual cooling function being passive or active.

When doing 2D tasks, the card will operate as passive, and cooling won't kick in until 3D applications or games heat up the GPU to a certain threshold. In order to provide a nice gaming experience at higher, bandwidth hungry resolutions, MSI used 1GB of GDDR3 memory from Qimonda. The core is factory overclocked to 700MHz, which will provide that additional push and smoother gaming. This card, just like all GeForce 8 and upper generation cards, features CUDA and PhysX support, supports DirectX 10 games and comes as well with good multimedia capabilities, excellent video playback and decoding power.

However, the downside to this card is a price that's much higher than that of the model with 512MB of memory and reference cooling. We're not sure whether the market will be forgiving as $165, which is the price you will pay for the MSI GeForce 9600 GT Hybrid Freezer, can buy you a much better graphics card. Other than that, the card is really a treat, and we sincerely recommend it if you manage to find it at a lower price.