Legit Reviews

XFX GeForce 9600GT XXX Edition Video Card Review

The 9600GT is one of the premier mid-range graphic cards on the market today. The XFX GeForce 9600GT XXX Edition takes this mid-range card and pumps up performance with a factory overclock and non-reference cooler. Read on to see hwo the XFX GeForce 9600 GT 512MB DDR3 XXX Alpha Dog does against the more expensive GeForce 8800 GT graphics card in a number of games!

The XFX 9600GT XXX Alpha Dog Edition provides a solid performance/price card that easily fits into most gamer gamer budgets. Given it's minimal power requirements and single-slot cooler, the 9600GT would be at home in the meekest OEM computer or a mid-range custom gaming computer. The XFX 9600GT XXX Alpha Dog Edition is definitely not the fastest option available on the market but it is one of the better buys when you are trying to get the best bang for your buck. If you are gaming at 1280x1024 I would highly recommend the 9600GT as a solid purchase that will hold strong for another 12 months with medium to high quality settings in current and upcoming titles.

Article Title: XFX GeForce 9600GT XXX Edition Video Card Review
Article URL: http://legitreviews.com/article/764/1/
Pricing At Time of Print: $159.99 plus shipping

Also welcome Chris to site/forums as this is his first review for LR! His forum name is gomeler and that might ring a bell for some of you!

Thanks for the opportunity to join LegitReviews! Plan on having some fun reviews coming out in the near future that play to my overclocking strengths. Now back to reviewing

Welcome to the team

Welcome to the team Chris, hope you are convinced to hang around LR more now

Dan

Welcome Chris

Welcome! Great to have you on board!

I have read many of your reviews, and generally find them very helpful. However, your conclusion to this one is strange. The 8800GT bested the 9600GT in every single test, sometimes by a good margin, and sometimes by a slim one, yet you conclude that the "best bang for the buck" is the 9600GT. There was a time when the 8800GT cost between $200.00 and $300.00, but today you can generally find it right in the same price range as the 9600GT. The 1GB versions are a bit higher, approaching $200.00 and over, but your comparson was of 512MG cards. And at that level, the are priced vitually the same.

You had a single complaint about the 9600GT -- that it's fan was very loud.

The major complaint about the 8800GT was that it ran very hot, and it could have used a higher CFM fan like the one in the 9600. But most card makers solved that issue be releasing a version using a beefier, but not louder, fan. It takes up two slots, but if you can spare the room, this is the card to get

So, if you absolutely have to have a single slot card, don't mind the noise, and don't have a very well ventilated case, the 9600GT might be a better choice. But if you spare that extra slot, an 8800GT with a bigger than stock fan is a much better bang for the buck in my opinion.


Bob

rjdriver wrote:I have read many of your reviews, and generally find them very helpful. However, your conclusion to this one is strange. The 8800GT bested the 9600GT in every single test, sometimes by a good margin, and sometimes by a slim one, yet you conclude that the "best bang for the buck" is the 9600GT. There was a time when the 8800GT cost between $200.00 and $300.00, but today you can generally find it right in the same price range as the 9600GT. The 1GB versions are a bit higher, approaching $200.00 and over, but your comparson was of 512MG cards. And at that level, the are priced vitually the same.

You had a single complaint about the 9600GT -- that it's fan was very loud.

The major complaint about the 8800GT was that it ran very hot, and it could have used a higher CFM fan like the one in the 9600. But most card makers solved that issue be releasing a version using a beefier, but not louder, fan. It takes up two slots, but if you can spare the room, this is the card to get

So, if you absolutely have to have a single slot card, don't mind the noise, and don't have a very well ventilated case, the 9600GT might be a better choice. But if you spare that extra slot, an 8800GT with a bigger than stock fan is a much better bang for the buck in my opinion.


Bob

You do make a rather good point. The 8800GT I was using currently retails for around $160 however the 9600GT is currently retailing for $120 on Newegg. The price I mentioned in the article was quoted from PriceGrabber, perhaps my mistake was not mentioning the lowest possible price for th card. Considering how both cards come with a bundled game, there is no difference between the two packages so it comes down to solely hardware performance. Both cards come with a factory overclock so in this case the 8800GT is slightly faster than the 9600GT at their box clocks.

In the end it all comes down to price/performance and I believe my mistake was simply quoting the wrong price. I'd still say the 9600GT is a good deal and this particular variant would stomp a default 8800GT. I will openly admit though that I prefer the 8800GT over the 9600GT as the stock heatsink on the Gigabyte 9600GT is a nice Zalman heatpiped heatsink with a lowspeed fan. The XFX 9600GT XXX Alpha Dog Edition(mouthful?!) however is a great choice for someone popping a card into an OEM box or a box with a questionable powersupply and I still stand by this.


Glad to see people are actually thinking and not simply reading and accepting what they read. This was my first review here so I'm still getting settled in, hoping the quality of my reviews will keep growing. Now back to finishing up a review using liquid nitrogen

Gomeler wrote:Glad to see people are actually thinking and not simply reading and accepting what they read. This was my first review here so I'm still getting settled in, hoping the quality of my reviews will keep growing. Now back to finishing up a review using liquid nitrogen

Thanks Gomeler. Didn't mean to be too critical of your first review. It was fine except for the conclusion. But I think that's important. A real careful shopper will read the entire reviw and get all the nuances, but sometimes people are impaitent, or simply not interested in the detail, and will skip to the conclusion. Hopefully, they would't make a buying decision based on a single review, but who knows. Once you get to trust the reviews from a certain site, you may pay less attention to the whole copy.

Getting back to the two cards, let me make one more point. I think if you look around, you'll find the 8800GT at $120.00 on Newegg as well. So for me, the cost issue is a wash. Once you get past the performance differences of these two cards, the other two important considerations are heat and noise. You mentioned the excessive noise of the 9600GT in your review. But noise is a very subjective thing. I mentioned the excessive heat of the stock cooling solution on the 8800GT, and heat is not good for the computer in general, and the life of the GPU in particular.

So how does one decide on these two issues? With video card makers pushing their chips further and further, I think it's more important now than ever that reviews include precise temperature measurements at load and idle, and decible measurements for fan noise. In game FPS or 3d Mark readings may no longer be enough to make a good buying decision. Some sites are doing this already. I think Legit should consider adding it.


Bob

rjdriver wrote:I think it's more important now than ever that reviews include precise temperature measurements at load and idle

I agree to an extent, but it's important to note that ambient temps of where you are testing play a factor. And is the test rig in a case or not. If it's in a case, is it a full or mid? Temps can be very squirrelly and there are so many factors to be taken into account. Just my $0.02 to throw at the wall...

Good review, I enjoyed it. Welcome to LR.