When the Smoke Clears & Prices Settle: GeForce 9600 GT vs. Radeon HD 3870
by Anand Lal Shimpi on February 22, 2008 12:00 AM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
The Value in Overclocking: EVGA’s 9600 GT SSC
EVGA is currently shipping the highest clocked GeForce 9600 GT. Dubbed the EVGA GeForce 9600 GT SSC, this card runs its core at 740MHz and memory at 1.950GHz (data rate).
| Game | Stock GeForce 9600 GT | EVGA GeForce 9600 GT SSC | Percent Increase |
| Core | 650MHz | 740MHz | 13.8% |
| Shader | 1.625GHz | 1.835GHz | 12.9% |
| Memory | 1.80GHz | 1.95GHz | 8.3% |
You can buy this card directly from EVGA for $219.99, or if you shop around you'll shave off about $10, pricing it 12.6% higher than the average GeForce 9600 GT. Today's question? Is it worth it?
We ran the same benchmarks from the previous page on the EVGA GeForce 9600 GT SSC card and compared it directly to the stock GeForce 9600 GT:
The overclocked EVGA actually yielded some very healthy gains in the 10 - 12% range in most of our tests, the only exceptions being World in Conflict and Quake Wars which were both around 2%. On average, EVGA managed to boost performance approximately 10% after a 12.6% increase in board price.
Given that this is a price-sensitive mid-range part, any significant increase in price had better be more than worth its corresponding increase in performance. The problem is that at $208, you're only $10 away from an 8800 GT 512MB which should have no problems outperforming the 9600 GT. The 9600 GT makes the most sense at the $169 - $179 price range, and at those price points you're going to be dealing with stock clock speeds.
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madgonad - Friday, February 22, 2008 - link
Is it even possible to benchmark an MMO due to the required server interaction?Sinerider - Friday, February 22, 2008 - link
I've seen several OLD benchmarks. Heck, I've used FRAPS plenty of times... I suppose there are problems with latency, connection, etc - but it'd be nice to get ballparks between brands.leexgx - Friday, February 22, 2008 - link
mmo norm need more cpu then any thing els and an ok video cardSinerider - Friday, February 22, 2008 - link
I've always found it strange that nobody seems to include MMORPG's in the game performance review sections - WOW, EQII - these are games that draw high upgrade ratio's, and when I did play, I was always desperately looking for larger review bases that included them - especially EQII.Probably doesn't matter much because it's an old game, but sheesh - hundreds of thousands, or in WOW's case, millions play, and a tonne are always upgrading - would seem worthwhile to me.
More directly related to the article: It's a tough call for me between this new 9600 or waiting to see what AMD has up it's sleeve... either way, looks like I'll be holding off just a little bit longer for an upgrade. I would say though, this seems to be a great time for midrange!
-Sinerider
wht1986 - Friday, February 22, 2008 - link
I agree. I play EQII about 95% of my gaming time. I am using an OC MSI 3870 now @ 1920x1200, but like any geek (err computer enthusiast) I always want to see more framerates/ete candy/etc. Would love to see an eq2 comparison.DigitalFreak - Sunday, February 24, 2008 - link
EQ2's engine was created when CPUs were projected to reach 10Ghz by now. It uses the CPU for stuff that should definitely be done on the GPU. Having a faster CPU will get you much more of a performance increase than upgrading beyond a Geforce 7x series.KnightProdigy - Saturday, February 23, 2008 - link
MMOs are not included as network speed and server lag come into play and do not accurately depict HW perfomance numbers.LostPassword - Friday, February 22, 2008 - link
clubit has better prices for 9600gt, but shipping is slow for meStupidMonkey - Friday, February 22, 2008 - link
how would this compare to a 7800GT?leexgx - Friday, February 22, 2008 - link
my 8800 gtx is faster then 2x 7800 gtx cards in SLI so 1 7800 ant goign to be an show stopper the 9600 gt is just under 8800 GT speeds (but do rember that 9600 gt 64, as the 8800 gt has 112? so when the 9800 type of cards come out thay should be 2x as fast as Nvidia stated then an 8800)