EVGA, Palit and XFX GeForce 9600 GT Video Card Review

XFX GeForce 9600 GT (PV-T94P-YDF)

The XFX GeForce 9600 GT standard edition has a nifty looking retail box with an AK-47 magazine and a handful of 7.62x39mm rounds to attract your attention.

XFX has several GeForce 9600 GT models to pick from, but the PV-T94P-YDD is the XXX Edition and features the highest clock speeds. The XFX GeForce 9600 GT XXX Edition will run $214.99 and feature a 700MHz clock speed with 2GHz memory and 1750MHz shaders. The Extreme edition is a little slower and priced at $199.99 and the standard edition features reference clock speeds and will be $179.99. The XFX card that we will be looking at today is the standard edition.

The XFX GeForce 9600 GT is based off the reference NVIDIA design as you can tell from the image above.

The XFX GeForce 9600 GT features two dual-link, HDCP-enabled DVI-I outputs for connection to analog and digital PC monitors and HDTVs, a 7-pin analog video-out port that supports S-Video directly, plus composite and component (YPrPb) outputs via an optional dongle that is part of the XFX bundle.

Just like the other cards, a single 6-pin PCI-Express connector is required as the maximum power draw of the board is 95 watts, which is more than what a PCI Express slot can handle on older motherboards. If you look at the the picture above you can see the six pin PCI-Express power header on the side of the board.

Inside the box, one will find the expected bundle that comes with all brands of video cards. The bundle included with the XFX GeForce 9600 GT 512MB includes a single DVI-to-VGA adapter, HDTV dongle, an S-Video cable, 6-pin PCI Express power adapter and installation instructions. The Driver disc included NVIDIA Forceware drivers and some other software like CoolBits for unlocking overclocking features. The bundle also includes the ‘Do Not Disturb’ door hanger like the other Alpha Dog series cards.