Product Reviews

MSI's N9600GT is the first graphics card we've seen to use one of Nvidia's new 9-series graphics processors. The GeForce 9600GT is based on the same architecture as the recent 8800GT, although it has just 64 stream processors. However, it still benefits from 512MB of GDDR3 RAM and a 256-bit memory interface, which ensures that there's no bottleneck for texture data to get caught in.

It also has PureVideo HD, so high-definition video playback doesn't require much CPU usage, and the two dual-link DVI outputs are HDCP-compliant. The box contains a DVI-to-HDMI convertor and a component video adaptor

MSI has overclocked this card from standard GeForce 9600 speeds of 650MHz for the core and 1.8GHz for the memory. The boosted figures of 700MHz and 1.9GHz give a slight increase in frame rates and, considering the low price, the scores from our game tests were surprisingly fast. Call of Duty 2, for example, was only 2.3fps slower than the Gigabyte 8800GT's score. We also saw 80.3fps in Prey, which is only slightly behind the 87.1fps of the 8800GT.

The N9600GT's performance is on a par with Sapphire's Radeon HD 3870 (What's New, Shopper 242), which costs over £130. The HD 3870 struggled in Call of Duty 2, scoring only 45.4fps, but its other scores were similar to the 9600GT's.

Using CyberLink's PowerDVD 7.3 and Asus's BC-1205PT BD-ROM, Casino Royale played smoothly at a resolution of 1080p. Vista's Task Manager reported 25 per cent usage of our test rig's Core 2 Quad Q6800 processor, leaving plenty free for other tasks to run in the background.

At this price, the 9600GT is a steal. On paper, the 64 stream processors might look inadequate, but the performance speaks for itself. It thoroughly deserves its Budget Buy award.