Conclusion

On the bottom line, the performance of this GeForce 9600 GT came as a pleasant surprise. Despite the stream processors being limited to only 64 on this chip, its 38% lower processing power, and 33% fewer transistors, gaming performance was only 12% below the 8800 GT on average. And it was even between 1% (without antialiasing) and 45% (with) better than the 8800 GT 256 MB (which is greatly hampered by its 256 MB of memory) – which means that the latter card is no longer even worth considering! Meaning that it was an extremely good choice to put 512 MB of memory on the 9600 GT, even if that doesn’t account for everything, since the 8800 GT has the same amount of memory.

The upshot is that the 9600 GT puts nVidia in a much more favorable position to compete with AMD. First, the HD 3850 is beaten hands down performance-wise, since even compared to its 512-MB version (which can be found on sale at 165-170 €, the expected MSRP for the 9600 GT), performance was approximately 15% better. Only the 256-MB version still has no competition, given its 140 € price point.

As for the HD 3870, currently available starting at 180 €, we can only recommend it to people who don’t use antialiasing – with that restriction, its performance remains better than the 9600 GT’s (by 5%). Once antialiasing is enabled, the performance spread is the same, but this time in favor of the 9600 GT, due to AMD’s uncorrected ROPs. But in any event we can only congratulate nVidia on the quality of the 9600 GT’s performance, especially considering that it has close to 2.5 times less raw power than the HD 3870! So the GeForce 9600 GT currently has more arguments in its favor than the HD 3870. But, keeping in mind the aggressive pricing policy AMD is capable of wielding, that situation could evolve down the road.

As proof of that last statement, AMD called us less than 24 hours before the end of this test to announce a sudden and significant drop in the price of its Radeon HD 3000 series. In the US, the MSRP of the HD 3870 will go from $245 to $189 and the HD 3850 512 MB’s from $199 to $169! That will again put AMD on top where price is concerned compared to nVidia’s offering. But now we have to see how nVidia will react to the news… It’s an unending war and it’s hard to stay on top of. But in this particular battle there’s no doubt that the consumer will be the winner!