Sparkle GeForce 9600GT

Full Review

The Sparkle GeForce 9600GT is another very good card for anyone looking to purchase a budget graphics card that does not compromise on performance

Specs & Design

The 9600GT has 512MB of RAM, a core clocked at 600MHz, 64 shaders and a 256-bit memory interface. The card has dual DVI ports but no HDMI port. While running, the 9600GT displayed no noise or heating issues. The card is small enough to fit into an inexpensive cabinet without any issues and it also doesn’t need an additional power input.

The card is small enough to fit into an inexpensive cabinet without any issues and it also doesn’t need an additional power input.

Performance

We tested the card on a system made up of an Intel Core i7 870 processor clocked at 2.93MHz, 2GB of Kingston HyperX DDR3 RAM, an Intel DP55KG Extreme Motherboard, an Intel X25-M 80GB SSD and running Windows 7 64-bit. Our benchmarks consisted of the 3D Mark ’06 and 3D Mark Vantage suite of tests and temperature and audio level tests. For gaming we tested the card using Crysis, Far Cry 2 and Tom Clancy’s H.A.W.X. at 1280x1024 and 1024x768 resolutions.

There is nothing to separate the 9600GT’s performance from the HD 4670’s. In the synthetic benchmarks, the 9600GT churned out very impressive scores of 11,061 and 20,484 484 in 3D Mark ’06 and 3D Mark Vantage (Entry preset) respectively. In Crysis at 1280x1024 with 4xAA and High settings, the GeForce managed 21fps and in Far Cry 2 at the same resolution and AA and Very High settings, the 9600GT was slightly ahead with 38fps as compared to the 32fps that the HD 4670 managed. In H.A.W.X., the 9600GT scored 30fps.

Bottom Line

The Sparkle GeForce 9600GT is priced at Rs. 5,000 and at that price it gives very good performance while keeping low noise and heat levels.