Hardware G94: Nvidia GeForce 9600 GT 512MB

[Tim S]

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/200...raphics_card/1

Nvidia has announced the GeForce 9600 GT today. Based on the G94 GPU, it's designed to hit a mainstream pricepoint of around £120 - will the retailers meet that price and, more importantly, will it perform well enough against some stiff competition? Read on to find out.

[docodine]

I wish that I had waited a little bit instead of ordering my ATI 3850...

[ImInTheZoneBaby]

Ah, at last. The 9 Series is upon us.
Yay, my birthday is around end-of-March-time so lets hope those nice High-end cards are released by then. ^^
9800 Here I come! =P

P.S. Get those 9800 Benchmarks coming asap bit-tech! =P

[Ending Credits]

The 100-200 pound card market looks pretty competitive: 9600GT, 8800GT, 8800GS, 3870 and 3850 and even the 8800GTS,there are even GTXs closing in on that price.

[Firehed]

Seems reasonable. Price isn't through the roof, nor is power consumption (for a nice change).

But what happened to 1920x1200 benches?

[Tim S]

Originally Posted by Firehed

Seems reasonable. Price isn't through the roof, nor is power consumption (for a nice change).

But what happened to 1920x1200 benches?

There's quite a bit more coming on the 9600 GT, but I had to cut some of the performance pages out of this article to get it done in time.

[Shielder]

What other cards are they releasing in the 9xxx series?

Andy

[Bauul]

Ooh, the 9xxxs are here! Hopefully this means 8xxx prices will start to fall, which would suit those of us still with (albiet perfectly impressive) 7xxxxs very nicely.

May I make a request? When the 9800 launches, can you do a comparisson between nVidia's 9800 and ATI's 9800? You may laugh, but given the modern price of an ATI 9800 (circa 99p), it might actually be the better deal (titter).

[wuyanxu]

looks like a great card for money.

any news on 9800GTX?? the true 9 series? as far as i can tell, all other 9 series are still Dx10.0

[Mankz]

I'm glad I got an 8800 GT in Novemeber then...

[Multiplectic]

Originally Posted by wuyanxu

any news on 9800GTX?? the true 9 series? as far as i can tell, all other 9 series are still Dx10.0

Actually, the G92s and G94s ARE the 9 series. The 9800GTX is codenamed G100, according to rumors. That'll be the "10 series".

On topic, amazing performance for the 9600GT. Averaging 15% less than a 8800GT, with a little bit more than half the SPs.
Tim, did I missed the temp/noise tests? Or they weren't included?

[WhiskeyAlpha]

Reading rumours over at XS, it appears the G94's enhanced texture compression/decompression algorithms are behind much of the relatively (considering the small number of shader processors) high performance.

If the same tech makes it into the upcoming 9800gt/9800gtx & 9800gx2 (and lets face it, why wouldn't it), then these three cards could end up being a lot more powerful than the "souped up G92s" people are expecting.

[Tim S]

Originally Posted by WhiskeyAlpha

Reading rumours over at XS, it appears the G94's enhanced texture compression/decompression algorithms are behind much of the relatively (considering the small number of shader processors) high performance.

If the same tech makes it into the upcoming 9800gt/9800gtx & 9800gx2 (and lets face it, why wouldn't it), then these three cards could end up being a lot more powerful than the "souped up G92s" people are expecting.

G94 has all of the technology found in G92 - there's nothing new at all. The enhanced texture compression is already a feature of the G92 and we wrote about that in our original GeForce 8800 GT review. There are no rumours at all - it's pretty safe to say that the new ROP technology will be rolled out into GeForce 9-series derivatives.

G92’s ROP layout is similar to every other graphics chip in the GeForce 8 family, whereby each ROP partition has an L2 cache and is assigned to a 64-bit memory channel. There are a total of four ROP partitions in G92, which back out onto a 256-bit memory interface. Each ROP partition can each process four pixels per clock if four samples per pixel (RGB colour and Z) are taken and if the pixels are sampled with only a Z component, each ROP partition can process 32 pixels per clock.

The ROPs still support all of the common anti-aliasing formats found in previous GeForce 8-series GPUs – these include multi-sampling, super-sampling, transparency adaptive AA and coverage sampling AA (CSAA). As the chip features a 256-bit memory interface, Nvidia felt the need to make some improvements to the ROPs’ compression efficiency to help reduce the reliance on bandwidth and memory footprint when anti-aliasing is enabled at resolutions like 1600x1200 and 1920x1200.

I spent time on the phone last night asking about what had changed in G94 (compared to G92) and basically there is nothing in the shader core. The compression techniques are definitely not new, that's for sure. And neither is the PureVideo HD engine - it's the same one that's in G92. The differences are that this supports HDMI and DisplayPort natively, and it also features a S/PDIF connector on the reference card - G92 does not support any of this in its default configuration. From everything I've been told, G92 requires an external chip to support DisplayPort for definite, while HDMI is a bit murkier but everything seems to point to it supporting it natively (although the S/PDIF isn't included on the reference design).

The fact is that until you get into shader-heavy games, G94 performs well in comparison to the G92. Games are only going to get more shader heavy though, so the GeForce 8800 GT will get faster. Many of today's games are fillrate limited on the GeForce 8800 GT---I've got more testing to come at higher details and resolutions that proves this point---and when you really crank detail up, you see a different picture in many scenarios. Upwards of 25 percent in some scenarios.

[Tim S]

Originally Posted by Multiplectic

Actually, the G92s and G94s ARE the 9 series. The 9800GTX is codenamed G100, according to rumors. That'll be the "10 series".

On topic, amazing performance for the 9600GT. Averaging 15% less than a 8800GT, with a little bit more than half the SPs.
Tim, did I missed the temp/noise tests? Or they weren't included?

There unfortunately wasn't time for temp testing, but it's something I hope to add. Noise testing is something we do subjectively and it was mentioned... it's not loud enough to make out inside a case - your hard drives will probably still be the loudest thing.

[WhiskeyAlpha]

Thanks for clearing that up Tim

One thing I find odd though:

Originally Posted by Regarding "G92"

As the chip features a 256-bit memory interface, Nvidia felt the need to make some improvements to the ROPs’ compression efficiency to help reduce the reliance on bandwidth and memory footprint when anti-aliasing is enabled at resolutions like 1600x1200 and 1920x1200.

How well do you think Nvidia achieved this goal? I mean the 256bit memory interface is clearly limiting the G92's performance up against the G80 (mainly 8800gtx of course) at higher resolutions with anti-aliasing.

[Tim S]

I don't think it's great... but it's better than it would be with the G8x ROPs

A G8x chip running at the same speed/config as a G94-300 chip (i.e. 256-bit, 64SP, same clocks) is somewhere between 3-5 percent less efficient in most scenarios. Crysis is a biggie at over 15 percent and that's why the G92-based chips perform so well against the GTX in that title.

[badders]

Zotac's box uses a familiar design that features a dragon

I'm glad we've now decided on this - Fire breathing or not, it's not a dinosaur.

for anyone confused, see here: http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/200...ition/comments

[Tim S]

Originally Posted by badders

I'm glad we've now decided on this - Fire breathing or not, it's not a dinosaur.

for anyone confused, see here: http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/200...ition/comments

Late night brain fart last time around...

[wuyanxu]

Originally Posted by Tim S

I don't think it's great... but it's better than it would be with the G8x ROPs

A G8x chip running at the same speed/config as a G94-300 chip (i.e. 256-bit, 64SP, same clocks) is somewhere between 3-5 percent less efficient in most scenarios. Crysis is a biggie at over 15 percent and that's why the G92-based chips perform so well against the GTX in that title.

so that's what nVidia has been up to in the 1 year after G80: optimising the bit that matters the most: shader pipelines.

im sure this design will be carried to G100 (9800GTX, apparently) and will produce playable FPS in Crysis, now that's a card i will buy!

[p3n]

I really dont like whats going on at the mo, sure ATI aren' t pressing nvidia but all these cards out/under performing their nomanclature has got to be confusing for the average user who doesnt know whats under the heatsink. 8800gt (new, 'budget' )> 8800gts (old, 'mid perf'> 9600 gt (newer, but only £10 cheaper) - sense please!