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Conclusion

Its a good time to be a PC gamer with $200 bucks burning a hole in your pocket.

It has been a long time since their has been so many viable options for mid-range cards. One thing is clear: the 9600GT is far superior to the 8600GTS, and has both the performance and price of a winner at around the $200 USD mark. While the last-generation mid-range cards were handicapped by a 128 bit memory interface, the 9600GT is a very capable card, with enough power to satisfy the demands of most gamers, at common resolutions.

Against the 8800GT, Palit's 9600GT Sonic stacks up pretty well. In many games, the 9600GT was just marginally behind our 8800GT. In that contest, there really isn't a clear winner: both cards offer good performance for their price. It just depends on what you are after, and how much you want to spend to get it.  

When compared to the ATI options -- both the HD3850 and HD3870 -- things get interesting. When I started this review, the 9600GT would easily be the better deal. But things change quickly! Although ATI is not releasing any new cards to compete with the 9600GT over the next little while, they did do something to throw a monkey wrench at NVIDIA's new ninth generation card -- they dropped the price of the HD 3870 by a whopping $55, and the price of the HD 3850 by $30. After you factor in these prices cuts, the HD 3870 stands up well against the 9600GT.

If you are looking to upgrade, now might be a good time to do it, but you will not have any easy choice to make. There is no clear winner, or easy choice between NVIDIA or ATI options. It'll come down to the particular card you are staring at on your local hardware shop's shelf (or maybe online.)

If a Palit GeForce 9600GT Sonic was on the shelf in front of me, I'd be inclined to go for it. While it is so far the only 9600GT I've had the chance to test, by all appearances, Palit seemed to have done a top-drawer job on it: the overclock is pretty good, the 3 phase power is a nice bonus, and you get all those lovely ports, which some people will find very handy indeed. Additionally, Palit offers a 3 year warranty, which is always reassuring to have. For the $30 dollars (or so) above the MSRP of a 'vanilla' 9600GT, the Palit 9600GT Sonic seems a solid choice, and is recommended.