MusicRadar Verdict
It's been a long time coming, but NVIDIA has finally produced a worthy successor to the 7600 GT
Pros
- +
Great performance at this price point. Comes awfully close to the 8800 GT chipset. Makes life extremely tough for rival ATI
Cons
- -
8800-based boards are not much more expensive
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This is getting silly. With the launch of the new GeForce 9600 GT, Nvidia has added yet another chipset to the ludicrously crowded upper-medium segment of the PC graphics market. To give you some idea of how congested things have become, have a chew on this brief synopsis.
Boards based on the ATI Radeon HD 3850 chipset can be had for a whiff over £90, while the 3870 kicks off at £125. From Nvidia, there's the 8800 GS, a cut-down chipset based on the G92 GPU at about £90, with the standard G92 variant (the 8800 GT) yours for £135 in 256MB trim or £150 for the 512MB version. The full fat G92, known as the 8800 GTS 512MB, starts at approximately £175.
Needless to say, several additional variations including a wide range of factory overclocked cards complicate matters further. Prices are likewise constantly shifting, creating all manner of confusing overlaps.
It's into this baffling, DX10-powered melange that Nvidia has dropped the 9600 GT. The particular Palit-flavoured 9600GT Sonic tested here, complete with factory overclocked core and memory settings, weighs in at £127.