Gigabyte GV-NX96T512HP (GeForce 9600 GT 512MB)

A Force for Efficiency

With the introduction of the GeForce 8 series, NVIDIA did away with the separation of 2D and 3D clock speeds for its desktop graphics. Previously, the clock speeds on an NVIDIA board were lowered when running a less intensive 2D application. When a 3D application was launched, the proper clock speeds were restored. This was an energy saving method that was discarded by NVIDIA due to the lower TDP requirements of the newer generation of cards and the fact that Windows Vista's Aero UI would be constantly taxing the graphics card anyway.

ATI however did not take the same approach. Instead, the company has aggressively played the energy efficient card, which culminated in the appearance of ATI's PowerPlay feature (previously on its mobile GPUs only) on its latest Radeon HD 3800 series. This feature allows for lower clocks on those compliant ATI graphics cards and in our experience, significantly reduced idle power draw compared to its NVIDIA counterparts.

So what's one to do if one desires the former 2D/3D clock separation of yesterday on a new NVIDIA card? One could either force that separation via third party utilities like RivaTuner or enjoy it out of the box from the vendor. The latter is in our hands today in the form of the Gigabyte Gv-NX96T512HP. While we knew that this was a Turbo Force edition card with additional features like enhanced performance tuning for maximum stability, we didn't realize about its 2D/3D clock separation till we plugged the card in. Before we go into all that, here are the technical specifications:

The Gigabyte GV-NX96T512HP

Like we mentioned earlier, this Gigabyte GeForce 9600 GT comes with 2D/3D clock separation. While idling, the core clock drops to a low 450MHz, with the GDDR3 memory also dropping to 1500MHz DDR. This is quite the contrast with its usual 720/2016MHz, which incidentally is overclocked for a GeForce 9600 GT (650/1800MHz). Stream processors are also upped to 1800MHz from the default 1680MHz in 3D mode. Therefore, one should get above average performance for 3D games while at the same time reap some marginal energy savings while doing less intensive tasks like checking your emails.

Besides its rather unique if not exactly innovative revival of 2D/3D clock separation, the Gigabyte GV-NX96T512HP is also a passively cooled card. This could be another reason why Gigabyte went with the variable clock speeds, since heat is always an issue for such cards with passive coolers. The cooler itself has four heat pipes, split into two pairs, with each pair having its own dedicated array of aluminum fins. Such a split allows for greater heat dissipation due to the larger total amount of surface area.

Like your standard GeForce 9600 GT, this Gigabyte card has audio headers for connecting a S/PDIF cable between it and the motherboard for HDMI audio integration. As its single SLI connector attest, it also supports multi GPU configuration, along with the host of PureVideo HD enhancements introduced by NVIDIA for the GeForce 9 series.

Gigabyte has also included its latest tweaking tool, Gamer HUD, which seems to be quite a comprehensive utility that keeps track of important information like temperature, fan speed and clock speeds. Users can either let the utility handle everything automatically or adjust the values themselves. There's even voltage adjustments for those who need the extra juice to push their card further during overclocking.

Finally, the usual accessories and cables should be found in the retail package. Since our review unit is an early set that came sans the bundle, we can only state the items listed on Gigabyte's product page below:

• DVI-to-VGA adaptor
• 9-pin mini-DIN to Component/S-Video dongle
• 6-pin Molex power connector
• Quick installation guide
• Driver CD

Test Setup

As usual, our system was configured with an Intel D975XBX 'Bad Axe' motherboard and equipped with an Intel Core 2 Duo E6700 (2.66GHz) processor. We had 2GB of DDR2-800 low latency memory from Kingston, running in dual channel mode. For our storage, we had a Seagate 7200.7 SATA hard drive, installed with Windows XP Professional and updated with Service Pack 2 and DirectX 9.0c.

In this review, we are comparing the Gigabyte GV-NX96T512HP against its other GeForce 9600 GT competitors. As the Gigabyte is overclocked, we have decided to pit it against those of a similar caliber, with only the ASUS card acting as the surrogate for a reference board due to its standard clocks. All these cards were tested using ForceWare 174.12 and our benchmark results were taken using the included time demos and other built-in benchmarking tools available in the following games:

• Futuremark 3DMark06 (ver 110)
• Company of Heroes (ver 1.3)
• F.E.A.R (ver 1.0)
• World in Conflict (ver 1.05)
• Supreme Commander (patched to 3255)
• Crysis (ver 1.1)
• Unreal Tournament 3 (ver 1.1)

Results - 3DMark06 (ver 110)

As one of the higher clocked GeForce 9600 GTs in our comparison, the Gigabyte was quite naturally a leading contender in the benchmarks and deservedly edged its rivals in 3DMark06.

Results - Company of Heroes & F.E.A.R

The Gigabyte remained one of the better cards in Company of Heroes, competing strongly against the Zotac GeForce 9600 GT AMP! Edition. It also outperformed the other cards in F.E.A.R, albeit by a frame or two at most.

Results - World in Conflict & Supreme Commander

While the Gigabyte GV-NX96T512HP was again in the spotlight for its performance in World in Conflict and Supreme Commander, the difference was quite marginal at times compared to the other overclocked cards. It was only when we looked at the numbers for the reference model that the justification for overclocking became evident.

Results - Unreal Tournament 3 & Crysis

No amount of overclocking can mask the limitations of a mid-range card like the GeForce 9600 GT, especially in that toughest of game engines, Crysis. While the performance of the Gigabyte is decent at modest resolutions and without antit-aliasing, it easily caved in once those settings are increased. Unreal Tournament 3 proved to be suitable for its capabilities, with frame rates that were rather playable even at 1920 x 1440.

Temperature

It was only expected that temperatures would be high for a passively cooled graphics card and despite Gigabyte's efforts, it was the case with the Gigabyte GV-NX96T512HP. The GPU especially was rather high, hitting 80 degrees when running our temperature test. Since it's also an overclocked GeForce 9600 GT, such a temperature reading is probably par for the course.

Overclocking

So how does the Gigabyte fare in overclocking, given its probable 'handicap' of having a passive cooler? Well, it certainly had the worst overclocking performance compared to the others, finishing at 770MHz for the core and 2060MHz DDR for the memory. Nevertheless, this is still a decent improvement over the reference clocks.

Conclusion

An interesting nugget of information that inadvertently came to light in Microsoft's ongoing Vista Capable lawsuit was confirmation that NVIDIA's early buggy drivers for Windows Vista were not merely nit-picking from enthusiasts. According to Microsoft's logs, NVIDIA drivers accounted for almost 30% of system crashes. No doubt, the larger market share enjoyed by NVIDIA may correspond to a higher number of such incidents but with fellow graphics chipmaker ATI scoring around 9%, it does paint a less than flattering picture.

Since our test system is still currently on Windows XP Professional, we can't comment about this with any first hand experience but we believe that the situation has been much improved now. It had better be, as NVIDIA is now pushing its new mainstream GeForce 9600 GT, which is likely to get more consumers onboard, thanks to its price and performance. For those looking at one of these new cards, the Gigabyte GV-NX96T512HP looks like an interesting design.

Gigabyte's attempt to custom the GeForce 9600 GT is a huge improvement over the reference board they pushed out at launch day. While that was a standard GeForce 9600 GT with a less than competitive price tag, this new Turbo Force version has quite a few tricks that set it apart from the competition. Firstly, the overclocked frequencies are one of the higher ones that we have seen and its performance reflect that. Then the presence of the passive cooler makes this a completely silent graphics card. Finally, the 2D/3D clock separation is another nice touch to reduce the power consumption and heat of the card when idling. The temperatures may seem a bit alarming to some users but with a properly ventilated chassis, it should be fine.

With all these enhancements to the original design, this Gigabyte is a rather premium implementation of the GeForce 9600 GT and for that you can expect to pay around US$185. However, you may just like what you have paid.

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