Zotac GeForce 9600 GT Amp! Edition

[W1zzard]

Today NVIDIA announced their new GeForce 9 Series. The first product is the GeForce 9600 GT, based on the new G94 GPU. Zotac's AMP! Edition comes overclocked straight out of the box for a little bit extra performance. This can bring the card very close to the GeForce 8800 GT in performance.

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[L|NK|N]

Wow. Great performance, price, temperatures. These cards are running $179-$209 on Newegg, this is going to be a very popular card, so get them while they are priced right!

 

[Solaris17]

im am +1 for anyone wanting this card it is a beast cool fast and thnx to 1ns chips i can confirm 1100mhz mem is indeed stable and with the core 65nm process overclocking is easy...

 

[ShinyG]

Wow, quite a good one! I was expecting it to be somewhere between the 3850 and 3870 but this is actually as fast as a 8800GT!
What I don't get is how the hell is this 9600GT as fast as a 8800GT which has twice the number of shader units. I know, it's clocked higher, but it doesn't add up...

 

[jtleon]

Excellent Review!!!!

W1zzard,

Just had to comment on that outstanding review!

I wonder if all ZOTAC 9600's will have the one and only 27Mhz crystal? Sounds like some clocking games are afoot. This card may be an big "Unlock" candidate in the future.

Great job!

Regards,
jtleon

 

[Solaris17]

Wow, quite a good one! I was expecting it to be somewhere between the 3850 and 3870 but this is actually as fast as a 8800GT!
What I don't get is how the hell is this 9600GT as fast as a 8800GT which has twice the number of shader units. I know, it's clocked higher, but it doesn't add up...

9600 has 16 pipes not 12 like the GT

 

[mdm-adph]

Too bad that the "Performance per Dollar" chart doesn't reflect ATI's latest prices... (They did just happen yesterday, I have to admit.)

 

[W1zzard]

I wonder if all ZOTAC 9600's will have the one and only 27Mhz crystal?

i hear this problem is present on more than just my sample, most reviewers just havent noticed it.

 

[jtleon]

As you are so well aware, 27Mhz has been the standard

i hear this problem is present on more than just my sample, most reviewers just havent noticed it.

I've found for the last decade and beyond, that both ATI and nVidia have standardized on the 27Mhz crystal for their designs. I would be very surprised if they have really changed to a 25Mhz design.

Regards,
jtleon

 

[W1zzard]

nvidia and their driver says 25 mhz .. i say 27 mhz

 

[btarunr]

Surprising results. The scores lived upto the appetizer on TPU Chat (34000 3DMarks ) Finally HDCP+HDMI becoming vendor-neutral for the GeForce is beginning to look promising, I mean, I can use the SPDIF_IO headers on my X-Fi card, route its output to the card, connect a HDTV and feed X-Fi digital audio to it, all with one tiny cable. How convenient.

 

[OnBoard]

Wasn't expecting it to perform so well, tomorrow I should finally get my 8800GT and with all the wait and first card RMAd, 9600GT is already here. Not that this is any cheaper yet, so I would't change to this, but one month forward and I don't see anyone buying stock 8800GT over this. How weird does that sound, the most wanted card in recent history and soon everyone want just 9600GT or 8800GTS

 

[[I.R.A]_FBi]

id still buy a 8800 GT oer this ...

 

[jtleon]

What about latest AGP Card review?

W1zzard,
I know its off topic, but I will continue using AGP for the foreseeable future. I understand that one vendor is offering an ATI 3850 based AGP card. Any chance you might review a roundup of AGP offerings in the near future?
Regards,
jtleon

 

[W1zzard]

no more agp here .. besides it will be hard to compare and you have only one product you can use. buy the hd 3850 or keep your old slow card, not much choice

 

[erocker]

W1zzard,
I know its off topic, but I will continue using AGP for the foreseeable future. I understand that one vendor is offering an ATI 3850 based AGP card. Any chance you might review a roundup of AGP offerings in the near future?
Regards,
jtleon

Sorry I'm still off topic but you have a very interesting setup! What kind of chipset does your motherboard use? It's somewhat of a shame that Nvidia hasn't made at least one more AGP card to work on thier NF3 chipsets and Vista. It would be a shame to see a cool older system like yours die too.

 

[ShinyG]

9600 has 16 pipes not 12 like the GT

If you're talking about ROPs, you're wrong: Both the 9600GT and the 8800GT have 16 ROPs (checked Wikipedia to make sure).
So my question still stands: if the chips are the same, and the 9600GT has half the shader units as the 8800GT, why are they so similar in performance?

 

[ktr]

Is it possible to run this card with 16amps of 12v?

 

[PVTCaboose1337]

I'm gonna buy the EVGA version this weekend.

 

[OnBoard]

Is it possible to run this card with 16amps of 12v?

I tried stock 8800GT with 18amps on 12V PSU and it shut down in 3DMark06, so doubt it is. That's of course if you are talking about single rail PSU, some multi rail ones allow more amps to where it's needed, if one is running dry. My Zalman 600W is like this and 4x16amps on 12v, no problems (PSU related) with 8800GT.

If you are talking about your current PSU, that has 2x16amp rails based on newegg specs and also found this, so you should be fine.

"Pros: Works great. This unit is running 4 SATA drives, 8800GT, overclocked C2D cpu, 4 ram sticks and has never balked or faltered. It gets heavy loads often."

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817171018

 

[ktr]

I tried stock 8800GT with 18amps on 12V PSU and it shut down in 3DMark06, so doubt it is. That's of course if you are talking about single rail PSU, some multi rail ones allow more amps to where it's needed, if one is running dry. My Zalman 600W is like this and 4x16amps on 12v, no problems (PSU related) with 8800GT.

If you are talking about your current PSU, that has 2x16amp rails based on newegg specs and also found this, so you should be fine.

"Pros: Works great. This unit is running 4 SATA drives, 8800GT, overclocked C2D cpu, 4 ram sticks and has never balked or faltered. It gets heavy loads often."

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817171018

sweet, at least i know now that i can update my pc one more time with out change psu.

Btw, i bought that psu for $8 bucks after MIR

 

[Solaris17]

If you're talking about ROPs, you're wrong: Both the 9600GT and the 8800GT have 16 ROPs (checked Wikipedia to make sure).
So my question still stands: if the chips are the same, and the 9600GT has half the shader units as the 8800GT, why are they so similar in performance?

i was talking about the GS.......i thought someone was comparing the GS with the 9600 my bad...but i was talking about the rop diff between the 8800GS and 9600GT

 

[ShinyG]

i was talking about the GS.......i thought someone was comparing the GS with the 9600 my bad...but i was talking about the rop diff between the 8800GS and 9600GT

Oh, ok. I'm glad we cleared that up.
Back on topic: they started selling 9600GTs in Romania, they're a bit under 200E. Wow, that's 3850 (512MB version) territory here! Good work nVidia, not only did you get a decend mid-range card out, but you also made AMD drop the prices on the 3870 and 3850. I love competition!
P.S. Too bad I got my 3870 a month ago (

 

[jtleon]

Iwill DH800 = Intel Chipset

Sorry I'm still off topic but you have a very interesting setup! What kind of chipset does your motherboard use? It's somewhat of a shame that Nvidia hasn't made at least one more AGP card to work on thier NF3 chipsets and Vista. It would be a shame to see a cool older system like yours die too.

The DH800 has the Intel P4 chipset i875P.
Regards,
jtleon