Comments on: Galaxy Geforce 9600GT 512MB LowPower LowProfile Graphic Card Review

By: low end vps

low end vps — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 05:33:16 +0000

low end vps…

[...]» Galaxy Geforce 9600GT 512MB LowPower LowProfile Graphic Card Review at goldfries.com[...]…

By: goldfries

goldfries — Tue, 04 Jan 2011 04:48:44 +0000

My card died already too. I did face the slowdown of the fan as well, that was before the demise of the card.

By: Wester

Wester — Mon, 03 Jan 2011 02:16:43 +0000

Nevermind. The card’s fan died on me with the ball bearings going. :/ As many a review has stated, the card’s fan does not handle the PCB of the 9600 GT well.

By: Wester

Wester — Fri, 19 Nov 2010 01:20:07 +0000

However, the card does not necessarily work properly at that point, as I believe the frame buffer doesn’t work correctly – it says it’s out of VRAM at higher resolutions in super low clock speeds. I suppose that’s the sacrifice, but I believe at around 400 MHz (for the core), 100 MHz (for the memory clock), and 1000 MHz (for the shader clock) that it would be able to reach 2560×1600 again and maintain a safe temperature maximum (below 80C, I think). Not acceptable at all, I think, but fascinating nevertheless.

By: Wester

Wester — Fri, 19 Nov 2010 01:18:05 +0000

An update… I was able to get the card to have a 68C maximum by lowering the clock speeds by like 6x. :/ Well, it’s better than nothing, but it’s certainly not qualifying for a 9600 GT at that point. Though it does affirm the belief that the fan/PCB is too small to handle the G96 core (or that some cards/fans of this ilk are just faulty).

By: Wester

Wester — Sat, 06 Nov 2010 19:25:56 +0000

turn off*

By: Wester

Wester — Sat, 06 Nov 2010 19:24:40 +0000

@ apple, I don’t think 220 watts of power would work – 300 is the minimum recommended specification (and I imagine the requisite too).

I’m happy to hear I’m not the only one who has that problem with this board. How quickly this board augments to around 100C under load is unsettling, considering 105C is the maximum operating temperature. But I’ve never let it go upwards of 93C, even at 100% fan speed, and I know it won’t stop there, but even that is too hot for me and would certainly curtail the lifespan of the card to be ran at that temperature frequently, which it reaches in around 3 minutes under full stress load for me (:-/). I don’t think the fan/PCB used on this is very good at handling the heat of the 2+ year old G96 core, and it does sound whinier the higher speed the fan’s at. Baffling how the original 9600GT would run much cooler yet draws more power and qualifies for less of a low power/profile card, but I guess it’s because of the design. I bought this card over a year ago (Summer of 2009) and have been too afraid to ever let it run at full load for long because I’m scared it will overheat and die. But perhaps a better cooling system for this LP board would have rectified everything.

See, I also tried downclocking it 2 fold on all three clocks (shader, memory, and core), and even that didn’t reduce the heat and the time it takes to get hot by much at all. The only way I can play games with this or just run 3D apps is to use very low resolutions, turn of FSAA/AF, and cap the frame-rate somehow to at least 60FPS, if not lower. That way the card is not under full computational load, so the temperature remains around the 60C-70C range instead and the fan speed itself doesn’t even reach 100% (in my experience). Very cheap, but at least it works. But I don’t think anyone bought this card to do that, even if it’s just a bit slower than the reference 9600GT. Of course, I’m sure this is old news by now, so unless you have a well working 9600GT LP card (or even two of them for those who have SLI configs), I too would advise to look for another card, even if you want a LP upgrade.

By: Tom

Tom — Sat, 30 Oct 2010 03:07:04 +0000

I bought three of these cards – I was shocked at how much HEAT they produce – its absolutely critical that the fans work all the time (there noisy). Anyway, the fans on two of my cards stopped working and the heat cooked the cards. Would not even bother replacing them with the same card.

My advice – look for another card!