Gigabyte GV-N96TZL-1GI GeForce 9600 GT Review

It's pretty amazing how quickly GPU prices have fallen from year-ago levels. One year ago, a GeForce 9600 GT would've run you anywhere from $170-$230 depending on how highly OC'ed a card you were willing to splurge on. Today GeForce 9600 GT cards sell for half that. As a result, gamers looking for an inexpensive graphics upgrade don't have to spend a whole lot of money to get a card that can delivery playable frame rates at 1600x1200 with high levels of eye candy. $100 is really all you need nowadays.

And what about those of you who picked up a 9600 GT sometime in the last 12 months? Now you can pick up a second card on the cheap for SLI. Once combined together, a 9600 GT SLI setup delivers frame rates that are greater than a GeForce 9800 GTX. Or you can use that second card to run dedicated PhysX.


To appeal to the budget gaming crowd in need of an upgrade, NVIDIA's board partners are working on their third generation 9600 GT cards. These cards are increasingly being offered with 1GB of GDDR3 memory (bigger is better right?), in addition to the supercharged clock speeds and better cooling you'd expect to see from a premium graphics card. Gigabyte's GV-N96TZL-1GI GeForce 9600 GT card is one of the latest 3rd-generation 9600 GT cards to hit the market, and it certainly packs an interesting array of features, including a trio of different display output options.

Ultra Durable VGA

Besides their performance and rock-solid stability, Gigabyte's motherboards are highly regarded for their Ultra Durable features like DualBIOS. One feature they've added just recently to their Ultra Durable boards is utilizing two ounces of copper in the power and ground layers of the PCB. This addition helps the board run cooler while also providing improved signal quality and lower impedance and EMI; all this helps to reduce electrical interference and enhances efficiency.

For their GV-N96TZL-1GI board Gigabyte takes this feature from their motherboards and integrates into their 9600 GT card, helping the graphics card run cooler by keeping the PCB itself cool. Even under load when overclocked, the PCB of the board just gets warm to the touch, not blazing hot like some cards. Gigabyte also takes the rest of their Ultra Durable 3 motherboard features such as all-solid Japanese capacitors, ferrite core chokes, and lower RDS MOSFETs. Here's the full list of Ultra Durable VGA features, provided by Gigabyte:

1. 2 oz Copper PCB:
2 oz copper PCB board doubles the copper inner layer of the PCB board and provides unrivaled performance compared with traditional 1 oz PCB board.
2. Tier 1 Samsung and Hynix Memory:
Ultra Durable VGA promises 1st tier Samsung/Hynix memory and are 100% fully tested
3. Japanese Solid Capacitor:
Solid capacitors contain a solid organic polymer, while electrolytic capacitors use a common liquid electrolyte. Our cards use Japanese solid capacitors made by leading Japanese manufactures and offer better electronic conductivity for unrivaled performance.
4. Ferrite Core Chokes:
Ferrite core chokes are comprised of a compound of iron-oxide whose properties hold energy much longer than common iron-core chokes at high frequency. They are able to store energy longer and prevent rapid energy loss at high frequency.
5. Low RDS (on) MOSFET:
Lower RDS(on) MOSFETs are specially designed to produce lower switching resistance for faster electric current charging and discharging.

Gigabyte's use of Samsung memory should appeal to enthusiasts looking to overclock. Samsung memory modules are well respected among the overclocking community for their ability to scale to higher than rated clock speeds.

Besides the Ultra VGA features, the other aspect that helps Gigabyte's GV-N96TZL-1GI 9600 GT board stand out from the pack is its GPU cooling powered by Zalman. More specifically the card is armed with a Zalman VF700-AlCu heatsink/fan unit.

While it's no longer Zalman's most powerful VGA cooler, the VF700-AlCu is still a highly respected VGA cooler. The cooler is a dual-slot unit composed of a mixture of copper and aluminum. An aluminum base dissipates heat off the GPU, which is then carried to an array of fins that are made from copper and to save weight and cost, aluminum. The fins are so long they will eat up the slot directly adjacent to your PCI Express graphics slot, with Zalman employing a dual ball-bearing fan that's responsible for supplying cool air to the cooler.

In full retail form the VF700 ships with RAMsinks and an external power connector that allows you to run the fan in silent or performance mode, although for Gigabyte's application the RAMsinks aren't included and the silent option is disabled; don't worry though as the fan still generates less than 30dB of noise in operation (in silent mode noise levels are reduced to just 18dB for the retail cooler). The VF700-AlCu is a $24 cooler, so Gigabyte definitely deserves some credit for including it on their latest 9600 GT card.


But Gigabyte doesn't stop there. The card is also overclocked from the factory to run at speeds higher than the stock 9600 GT. Whereas the GPU clock on the stock 9600 GT is 650MHz, Gigabyte's GV-N96TZL-1GI core clock frequency is 50MHz higher at 700MHz. The board's stream processors are then clocked at 1800MHz, this is 175MHz higher than the stock 9600 GT. Finally, the board's memory subsystem remains at the stock 9600 GT speed of 900MHz. And don't forget that the board can be had with up to 1GB of Samsung GDDR3.

The final tweak Gigabyte adds to their GV-N96TZL-1GI is display outputs. On the backplate of the card Gigabyte provides one HDMI output, a VGA connector, and finally, DVI. This gives you three different connections to choose from.

Accessories

To keep costs down, Gigabyte skips the traditional game bundle. Instead the card ships with a driver CD, DVI-to-VGA adapter, audio passthrough cable for running audio over HDMI, and a 6-pin PCIe power adapter. It's a pretty minimal bundle by Gigabyte standards but is pretty much standard fare for this price range of VGA cards.