Related Articles

Power Usage

To measure power usage, we used a Kill A Watt P4400 power meter. Note that the above numbers represent the power drain for the entire benchmarking system, not just the video cards themselves. For the 'idle' readings we measured the power drain from the desktop, with no applications running; for the 'load' situation, we ran a demanding part of 3DMark06.

When it comes to power usage, a fan does not take all that much energy to operate.

The Gigabyte 9600GT compares favorably to the 8800GT OC here, putting in around the same performance in games, while requiring less power.

Conclusion

Overall, the Gigabyte 9600GT is a good card. It can be recommended, but with some reservations. There are a few good things going for this card, but there is one not-so-good thing happening here as well.

On the positive side of things, this card's cooler is exceptional. As said earlier, some $30 CPU coolers have less fins than does the cooler found on this fine video card. If you are looking for a quiet and capable video card, stop reading right here. This card is for you. This Gigabyte 9600GT is aggressively overclocked, yet the 'Multi-Core Cooling' keeps the video card running cooler than a stock HD4850.

A second positive thing worth mentioning is the Gamer HUD software that comes with this card. As far as video card board-partner overclocking software goes, Gamer HUD is the best program seen here at Neoseeker so far. Gamer HUD allows you to change the card's voltage, which is probably not something that many people will use, but for those looking for this option, they will be quite excited to find it -- currently Gamer HUD is the only card-bundled piece of software that allows for his amount of control over overclocking your video card.

The one negative that needs to be said is -- unfortunately -- one that Gigabyte could not do much about: the HD4850. For gamers that have performance as a primary, secondary (and maybe even tertiary) consideration, the speedy HD4850 offers more bang for the buck selling for less than $50 more and offering significantly more performance. However besides the paradigm-changing HD4850, this Gigabyte 9600GT stacks up better than would be expected to the other cards selling for a similar price, including the 8800GT, the HD3870, and the 9600GSO, thanks to a very aggressive factory-overclocking that the effective cooler has no trouble sustaining. 

Overall, the Gigabyte 9600GT is a fine video card. Kudos to Gigabyte for allowing voltage control through the Gamer HUD program. While when it comes to sheer gaming performance this video card might not be the first choice, the Gigabyte 9600GT is a well put together package with many things going for it.