Date:
Tuesday , April 15, 2008
Author:
Matthew Krysiak
Editor:
Brent Justice
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MSI N9600GT 512M OC

The MSI N9600GT 512M OC offers a fast clock speed and sports a unique cooling solution with a special quiet fan blade design. We will compare gameplay performance of this sub-$200 video card in Crysis, Jericho, and CoD4.

Introduction

Mirco-Star International (MSI) was founded in 1986 as a computer motherboard manufacturer. They have expanded their product line into barebone PCs, video cards, rackmount servers, networking equipment, and notebooks. MSI is a diverse company, producing ATI video cards, NVIDIA video cards, motherboards for AMD CPUs, and motherboards for Intel CPUs.

For this evaluation, we're taking look at one of MSI’s latest video cards: The MSI N9600GT 512M OC.

The GeForce 9600 GT

On February 21st, 2008 we took a look at NVIDIA’s new GeForce 9600 GT. The GeForce 9600 GT reference design specifies a GPU frequency of 650MHz, a shader frequency of 1.625GHz, and 512MB of GDDR3 at 1.8GHz on a 256-bit memory bus. The BFGTech 9600 GT that we evaluated was clocked at 675MHz for the GPU and 1.8GHz for the memory.

We have also looked at other add-in-board partner cards from Palit, ASUS, EVGA, and KFA2. The ASUS card was the slowest of the four clocked at only reference speeds. The KFA2 was clocked at 675MHz on the GPU and 2GHz for the memory. The Palit was clocked at 700MHz on the GPU and 2GHz for the memory. Finally EVGA had the highest GPU manufacturer’s overclock of an impressive 740MHz and a mere 1.95MHz for the memory.

MSI N9600GT 512M OC

The MSI N9600GT 512M OC finds itself in the upper ends of the pack with a clock speed of 700MHz for the GPU and 1.9GHz for the memory. MSI has also improved the cooling solution by increasing the heatsink size and adding a vent to the back. MSI is using a new technology for their fan blade design that they dub “Seaweed-Blade fan” which is suppose to lead to higher air-pressure and lower noise output.

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The MSI N9600GT 512M OC comes in an average size black box with a princess on the front. On the right side of the box are some specification listed: 512MB DDR3, HDMI Ready, HDCP Ready, Dual DVI / TV Out, Dual Link DVI, and PCI Express 2.0. Underneath those is a picture of gears that is MSI’s way of informing us that the card is overclocked from the factory. On the back of the box are all the standard features and specifications listed.

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MSI has chosen to use a sleek clear red plastic shroud for the cover to the heatsink. The video card’s blue DVI ports also are capable of outputting HDMI with audio when using an adapter. On the side of the video card you will notice the white connector that you can connect to your audio card which allows you to output the audio with the HDMI cable. Also notice that from side you can see that the memory modules don’t have any heatsinks on them, this could potentially lead to poorer overclocking. You can also see that while there is a vent on the back bracket, the hot air is not ducted to go out the back, which means more of the hot air is going to stay in the case.

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There is nothing special to note on the back of the card other than that whole cooling solution is held on by only four screws. The final picture shows the accessories included with the card. These include “Quick User’s Guides,” a driver CD, a SPIDF cable, an internal audio connector, PCIe to Molex adapter, a DVI to HDMI adaptor, and a DVI to D-Sub adaptor.

Focus

Today we are going to compare the similarly priced NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT, ATI Radeon HD 3870, and the ATI Radeon HD 3850 with the MSI N9600GT 512M OC. Currently you can find an ATI Radeon HD 3850 for the cheapest out of the three for only $130 after mail-in-rebate. The MSI N9600GT 512M OC comes in next at only $140 after mail-in-rebate. Prices on GeForce 9600 GTs have dropped quite a bit since introduction. Then the ATI Radeon HD 3870 at $150 after mail-in-rebate. Finally the most expensive of the four cards is the NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT at $180.

We will be evaluating the gameplay experience in Crysis, Jericho, and CoD 4. We are really interested to see how Jericho performs since this will be the first time we will be using this shader intensive game on this level of GPU. Then we will take a look at how far we can overclock the MSI N9600GT 512M OC and hopefully MSI’s improved cooling solution will help us there. Finally we will compare the temperatures with a NVIDIA GeForce 9600 GT reference card and see just how much better said cooling solution is.