Bringing Competition to Midrange: The GeForce 9600 GT Raises NVIDIA's Sub $200 Bar
by Derek Wilson on February 21, 2008 9:00 AM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Performance
Version: 1.2.0416 Shivering Isles
Settings: Ultra High Quality settings defaults with vsync
disabled. No AA or AF.
Our Oblivion test takes place in the south of the Shivering Isles, running through woods over rolling hills toward a lake. This is a straight line run that lasts around 20 seconds and uses FRAPS to record framerate. This benchmark is very repeatable, but the first run is the most consistent between cards, so we only run the benchmark once through and take that number.
The only thing we change from the default Ultra High Quality settings is that we disable vsync and change the resolution. With higher performance cards, we might want to look into some of the user mods out there or hand tuning some of the quality values in the oblivion.ini file in order to push systems, but this generation of midrange cards seems to be able to handle Ultra High fairly well at the resolution games will likely run on these cards. Of course, we disable sound and don't run into any enemies in this test, so actual game play experience will likely be a bit lower. But cards that perform better in our test will be able to handle more under those conditions as well.
The AMD Radeon HD 3850 does much better with respect to the GeForce 9600 GT in this test than in others. The parts are still in the same class, but AMD has come out on top in this benchmark. Interestingly, this is also one of the only benchmarks where 256MB framebuffer on the 8800 GT doesn't totally trash its performance, and thus it also performs better much better than the 9600 GT.
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dm0r - Thursday, February 21, 2008 - link
Ca we say the best midrange nvidia card ever?Good review.Ill keep tunned for more testing.I also would like to see the 256MB variant.Thanks
kmmatney - Thursday, February 21, 2008 - link
No, I don't think you can say best mid-range card ever. The past year has been so bad, it just makes this look like a good deal. This is what the mid-rnage should have always been like. Some better mid-range cards in the pastBetter mid-range cards that I've owned in the past
Voodoo3 1000 - $45 card, performed better than $100 cards at the time
Ti4200 - $120, very overclockable
Radeon LE - $65 - bios update to perform like a $165 card
6600GT - defacto mid-range card for a long time
Radeon X800GTO2 - Bios update to 16 pipes, X850XT PE speeds
There are others, these are just very good mid-range cards that I've owned, that I would say offered the same or better bang-for-buck as the 9600GT.
BigLan - Thursday, February 21, 2008 - link
The 6600 was a great card for it's time, and further back than that the 4200ti was incredible - though you could argue that it wasn't technically mid-range.dm0r - Thursday, February 21, 2008 - link
oh, forgot to mention the temperature testsknitecrow - Thursday, February 21, 2008 - link
It is a good preview but I would like to see more in depth benchmarking, esp. with titles like Gears Of War, and BioshockSpivonious - Thursday, February 21, 2008 - link
Is the 3850 included in the benchmarks at 256MB or 512MB?hadifa - Thursday, February 21, 2008 - link
Tomshardware has done some tests with the 512MB versionImSpartacus - Saturday, February 23, 2008 - link
I don't know why anyone bothers with the 256mb version anymore. The 512mb is cheap as dirt and does wonders on those higher resolutions.I was planning on getting one, but this 9600gt is looking a little better.
Spivonious - Thursday, February 21, 2008 - link
Nevermind, I read the whole last page now :)