9600GT Again? I normally wouldn’t take on another 9600GT review as I’ve done that quite a few times over, however this one’s was a Low Power and Low Profile version – so I thought it to be pretty interesting.

The Appearance

The card comes in Galaxy’s signature blue PCB and sticker over the heatsink, and it is both short in length and in height. This makes the card ideal for smaller casing.

Just how short is it? Here’s the card in comparison to a Tesco club card, which is based on the standard size for cards.

Solid caps and heatsink. Take note also of the copper based for the heatsink.

The heatsink is securely fastened at the back, however this might pose a problem on boards that are have PCI-E x16 slot placed in close proximity to the DIMM slots, in my case I found that the heatsink holding piece blocks the DIMM clip. Generally I blame this on the board design than the card itself, I’ve always disliked boards with PCI-E that are close to DIMM slots, and also those that place SATA ports near the PCI-E slot too.

The card relies on a small fan, and with it comes with DVI and HDMI output.

The Bundle

- The card
- Installation CD and guide
- Brackets (regular and short version)
- DVI to VGA dongle

Card Details

Here’s a summarized detail of the card.

More details at the official product page, it looks very similar to another one that’s not the low-power version. Note the PCI-E power connector at the end of the card.

Basically the card is a slower version of 9600GT (Reference) with 600Mhz GPU clock, 900Mhz Memory clock and 1500Mhz Shader clock while the regular versions come with 650 MHz GPU clock and 1625 MHz Shader clock.

Test Setup

The computer setup used for this review.

The Performance

For a fair comparison, I’ve placed the benchmarks from the HD4670 and HD4770.

Reason being that the 9600GT is priced between the HD4670 and the HD4770, hence comparing between them would give a good picture of the performance level.

World In Conflict

Graphic Detail : Maximum @ 1680×1050

Company Of Heroes : Opposing Fronts

Graphic Detail : Maximum @ 1680×1050

Lost Planet : Extreme Condition

Graphic Detail : Maximum at 1680 x 946

Crysis

Graphic Detail : Maximum @ 1680×1050

H.A.W.X.

Graphic Detail : Maximum @ 1680×1050, not using DX10.1 for mode.

Furmark

Graphic Detail : Maximum @ 1680×1050

Operating Temperature

Furmark was used for graphic card stressing.

Readings were taken when ambient temperature was around 23°C.

- Load, Furmark was run for 1 minute at 1680×1050 with 4xAA.
- Stress, Furmark was run under the Stress Test mode for 5 minutes.

I must say that I’m impressed by the temperature, seeing how compact is the cooler itself. The low-powered nature of the card helps.

Power Consumption

Please note that the numbers below indicate the wattage for the entire system, not the graphic card alone.

Readings taken with Gigabyte’s P-Tuner software.

Unfortunately I do not have a regular 9600GT for comparison BUT I think the low-power consumption HD4770 is a decent comparison. Looks good here, low power consumption it is.

Conclusion

I am really tempted now to acquire another unit for SLI-ing on one of my rigs.

Basically, this card is a little faster than the HD4670 while both are good for low power consumption.

The card retails at around RM 320, it sacrifices a little on performance for the low power advantage, with the low profile being a plus.

(If you’re looking for something low profile, decent GPU power and of course, want something of low power consumption that doesn’t burden your already not-so-great power supply.)

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 11th, 2009 at 2:24 am and is filed under Graphic Cards, Hardware Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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