MSI N9600GT-T2D512-OC (GeForce 9600 GT)

Introduction

At the risk of sounding like a stuck record, we have to point readers to yet another updated report on the state of the desktop graphics market. The scores are in for fanboys from both sides. Despite the generally optimistic outlook many of us had about the Radeon HD 3800 series, these cards failed to halt NVIDIA as it plowed to gain a massive 71% of the discrete graphics card market in the fourth quarter of 2007.

Overall, the desktop market has actually grown quite spectacularly, so all those doomsayers predicting the end of PC gaming may just have to wait a while longer. A small decrease in total revenue however from the third to fourth quarter hints that the growth is likely fueled by a drop in prices, the timing of which suggests that the arrival of the popular and attractively priced GeForce 8800 GT may have been the catalyst for this growth. If true, it's a pretty big sign of the market potential of consumers genuinely wanting more graphics horsepower at more sane prices instead of the super high-end stuff that costs more than an average console or even whole PC systems.

The arrival of the mid-range GeForce 9600 GT will go a long way towards pulling in the mainstream consumer. Although 'mainstream', we have seen it do quite decently in the latest games, provided that you're not overly ambitious. The 256-bit memory bus and 512MB frame memory certainly helps raise the bar on what constitutes mainstream and while ATI's Radeon HD 3800 series is capable of matching the newcomer on performance, prices have to be adjusted to stay competitive. Consumers will definitely benefit from this, though we can't say the same for ATI's (AMD) revenue.

In any case, even after our recent shootout involving a number of GeForce 9600 GT cards, there have been new review units coming our way, so without further ado, here's a slightly overclocked GeForce 9600 GT from MSI:

The MSI N9600GT-T2D512-OC

Given the highly competitive scene in the NVIDIA graphics card business, with multiple vendors vying to push the same product, MSI has rightly tried to spruce up its GeForce 9600 GT offering with a custom cooler. This is your basic if well-made cooler that uses heat pipes to distribute heat to the cooling fins. The fan itself is relatively quiet though we found the red translucent plastic shroud rather unsightly. It is however well secured to the cooler so no unnecessary vibrations here. Besides the well performing non-standard two-slot cooler, the card is identical to the reference board.

The amount of overclocking on this MSI card is decent and on par with many of its competitors. The core has been upped to 700MHz while the memory is now at 1900MHz DDR. The stream processors also got a slight increase to 1680MHz. Obviously, we have seen more extreme versions out there but 700MHz is in fact quite common among retail overclocked GeForce 9600 GT editions.

MSI has also included quite the collection of accessories and cables for the prospective buyer. The S/PDIF cable to interface with your audio device and channel digital audio through the graphics card's output (via HDMI) is included, along with a DVI-to-HDMI adapter. This perhaps will make up somewhat for the lack of any games or applications in the package. The complete list is as follows:

• Driver CD
• Installation guide
• DVI-to-VGA adapter
• DVI-to-HDMI adapter
• 6-pin Molex power connector
• 7-pin mini-DIN to Component/S-Video dongle
• S-Video extension cable
• S/PDIF cable

Test Setup

The same setup we used for recent GeForce 9600 GT shootout was called into action again. This was a system with an Intel Core 2 Duo E6700 (2.66GHz) processor, an Intel D975XBX 'Bad Axe' motherboard, 2GB of low latency HyperX DDR2-800 memory from Kingston in dual channel and a Seagate 7200.7 SATA hard drive with Windows XP Professional (Service Pack 2 and DirectX 9.0c). We took our scores for some of the cards tested in the shootout and compared them with the MSI. All the GeForce 9600 GT cards were using beta ForceWare 174.12. In case you need any refreshing, the table below shows the variety of cards we'll be comparing (but not all cards from the shootout will grace this article).

With the exception of the ASUS, which doubles as a reference card due to its standard clocks, the rest have clock speeds that are similar to those found on the MSI. The results presented 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 Pro (ver 110)

As expected from its overclock, the MSI could just about keep up with the rest of the 700MHz bunch of GeForce 9600 GT. Its slightly slower memory clock of 1900MHz probably cost it a few points here but compared to the reference board (as represented by the ASUS), it is about 3 - 5% faster.

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

The scores from these two benchmarks mirrored what we saw in 3DMark06. The MSI naturally had the advantage over the reference ASUS but when it came to the other overclocked competitors, it was equal to or close. With cards like the Zotac having even higher clock speeds, its faster results are inevitable.

Results - World in Conflict & Supreme Commander

The MSI surprisingly got ahead of some of its rivals in World in Conflict but given the one frame per second advantage that we saw, it's hardly significant and could be part of the natural variations one finds in a benchmark. Supreme Commander meanwhile was in line with our other test results and the MSI was comparable with the competition.

Results - Unreal Tournament 3 & Crysis

It was more of the same in these two benchmarks, arguably the standard flag bearers of the peak of computing gaming graphics at the moment. While Unreal Tournament 3 proved to be more scalable and hence more forgiving of a mid-range card like the GeForce 9600 GT, Crysis at high settings is too tough for these cards except at the lower resolutions. When the differences between the cards here are mostly one frame per second or less, it doesn't really matter whether you've got a standard or overclocked edition.

Temperature Testing

With a custom cooler, you'll expect to see improvements over the reference design. That was fortunately the case with the cooler on the MSI. According to our results, it had the third lowest temperatures for the core at peak workload, losing out to the ASUS and XpertVision. Of course, the default cooler wasn't too bad either, with these overclocked cards measured to less than 60 degrees Celsius for the core. Together with its quiet fan, the MSI N9600GT-T2D512-OC looks to be worth the extra expansion slot taken up by its cooler.

Overclocking

Overclocking turned out to be a strength of this MSI card. Perhaps the cooling helped but the card was among the better performers in this section, again finishing third, behind the ASUS and Leadtek in terms of absolute performance. The differences between all the GeForce 9600 GT cards when overclocked to their limits were quite minor however. So it's quite a safe bet as far as air-cooled overclocking goes, you're bound to get similar overclocked performance.

Conclusion

It's early days since the introduction of the GeForce 9600 GT but from what we found on online retailers like Newegg, prices have quickly plunged from the launch price set by NVIDIA. The competitive market, with ATI's own recent price cut, has made this a good time to buy. A mainstream price of around US$150 now also entices consumers to finally upgrade their graphics cards, especially as the mediocre GeForce 8600 series probably turned off some previously.

To distinguish itself, MSI has gone through its book of tricks, from overclocking the N9600GT-T2D512-OC to having a custom cooler. The usual MSI proprietary software and applications are mostly missing however, so another 'Diamond' edition may be in the works, with features like CoreCell, D.O.T and likely even higher clock speeds. The present version we have now however works at giving users excellent value. No doubt, it is hardly the fastest card, or the quietest or even the coolest. Yet, from our results, it has scored well in all these aspects, making it a well rounded GeForce 9600 GT.

Finally, its value is best exemplified by the very competitive S$299 local price. At this price, one could probably get a basic standard clock GeForce 9600 GT with little frills, though ASUS' Glaciator equipped GeForce 9600 GT at the same price, does pose an attractive counteroffer to the MSI. The clincher is as we mentioned, a combination of factors that make the MSI an above average choice for those doing comparison shopping. Coupled with the reliability and warranty support of an established vendor, the choice is none too difficult.

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