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Hands-on with MSI N9600GT Hybrid Freezer Graphics Card

If you need to keep a graphics card really cool that will certainly get hot, then why not stick a freezer on it. This is the MSI N9600GT Hybrid Freezer graphics card and looking at the card you notice the cooler right away and just how smart it looks. Tweak Town have given this latest addition from MSI a full review and in their final thoughts they said, “Since the card isn’t really of final specification, we won’t give it a rating. But we have to admit that the Hybrid Freezer technology MSI has on offer is looking pretty impressive. The cooler alone looks very cool and the design on a whole seems excellent. Hopefully it’s something we see more of in the MSI design.

Before we ramble on about all the great features of the card, the choice to currently restrict the cooler to the 1GB model is a bit disappointing. While it’s good the option is there at all, the decision to place it on the 512MB model will represent better value for money. The 9600GT is an excellent performing card, but in all fairness it really isn’t up they’re with the likes of some of the higher end models that are actually able to make use of the extra memory on board.

With that said though, we can understand why MSI has the cooler on the 1GB model. It doesn’t matter that the performance increase is really non-existent; people just like to say that they have 1GB of graphics card memory on hand.

The main thing I can’t get over however is the look of the cooler; it’s simply awesome with everything looking great, from the mesh over the fan to the plastic that covers the fins. We would have liked to have heard the fan spin up just to see what its noise levels are like, but we’re not exactly going to complain about the fact that under all the benchmarks we threw at it the fan didn’t once have the need to spin up.

Now we just have to hope that MSI go for a decent overclock, which we’re sure they will if past experience is anything to go by. The current crop of 9600GT OC cards from MSI comes with a 700MHz core and 1900MHz DDR memory clock. Hopefully we see at least 2000MHz DDR on the memory clock with this new model, and maybe another 20MHz on the core to really make the card stand out.

Hopefully we see more cards in the MSI family pick up on the Hybrid Freezer technology soon, because it really has the ability to impress.”

Read full 17 page review.

Hands-on with BFG Tech GeForce 9600GT OC2

This is the BFG Tech version of a GeForce 9600GT OC2 graphics card; the card is pretty good in most departments. Performance, availability and value for money are all ticked, and if you’re big on warranty then the BFG line is a good option.

Tweak Town have given this card a hands-on and in their final thoughts they said “BFG Tech; while always having been a brand that has pushed overclocked cards, the company never really pushes its cards to the limit. With the release of the new OC2 and OCX models we thought that this would change, and it’s a bit disappointing to see that BFG hasn’t gone for the 700MHz core and 2000MHz DDR memory clock configurations a lot of other companies have used who are pushing a bit of a serious overclock.

With that said though, BFG has done what they do best; create a mildly overclocked card that gives us a nice little performance boost while offering a lifetime warranty and 24/7 tech support.

Since we pretty much felt that the card wasn’t going to have any issues at 700MHz on the core and 2000MHz DDR on the memory clock, we thought we would just take the time to overclock it. As we expected, the card ran like a dream and continued to give us a few extra FPS here and there.

The good thing about the BFG Tech 9600GT OC2 is that we do get a nice little overclock while sticking with the single slot cooler. On a whole the cooler is pretty good and does a good job cooling our card. If you’re tight for space as well, then it’s an excellent option.

While we don’t have any games and the cable department is pretty light, you do pay for the warranty and technical support. While some enthusiasts who might find this unnecessary due to performing regular upgrades and generally just knowing what they’re doing, if you do keep your graphics card for a long time and want the peace of mind that you’ll be covered if something nasty happens in 3 or 4 years, you can still get warranty on it.”

Read the 17 page hands-on.

Hands-on with Palit 9600GT Sonic 1GB Graphics Card

The Palit 9600GT Sonic 1GB graphics card has had another 512MB of RAM added to this version compared to other models, but the new Palit 9600GT still retains the excellent connection options. The Palit 9600GT line-up continues to be one of the best on the market, and the 1GB model with its good overclock and large connectivity options doesn’t disappoint. The graphics card has had a 17 page hands-on review by Tweak Town and in their final thoughts, they said “I was talking to a manufacturer today who was saying just how popular the 1GB models are, and it seems although you really do get little to no increase from the extra memory, people still want it.

The Palit Sonic offering is one of the better 1GB models for the plain fact that we get a mammoth amount of connectivity on the card. You include the full version game and the good aftermarket cooler if you really have a desire for a 1GB graphics card in this price bracket, and this could be the card to buy.

Palit has really become an aggressive partner on the graphics card market and has built a very solid name with their Sonic and Super series of cards. The latest addition to their 9600GT cards which see connectors like Display Port, HDMI, and Optical all embedded into the I/O panel has really made them stand out from the competition, setting the bar high and doing what they need to in order to make their cards stand out.

While the 1GB of memory really does very little for us for the most part, if you find yourself wanting the large amount of memory along with a cool running card and more connectivity then you can poke a stick at, the Palit 9600GT (Super) Sonic 1GB is the card for you. We don’t doubt for a second that it will disappoint.”

Read the 17 page review.

Hands on with the ASUS EN9800 GTX 512MB Graphics Card

This is the ASUS EN9800 GTX 512MB graphics card that is very good card, although it does not offer anything too out of the ordinary. The card does represent some decent value for money when compared against some of the dual GPU offerings; this card comes with extras like an extra year warranty and a CD Wallet.

Tweak Town have got their hands on the retail 9800 GTX from ASUS and have gave it a good going over with the results spread over 20 pages. They said, “The 9800 GTX looks good as always, but with word coming that NVIDIA are already talking about the 9900 series, you have to wonder how many people are going to jump on the bandwagon.

As usual, the ASUS offerings carry with them a slight premium over other models, but the extra year warranty, CD Wallet and other pieces of software that ASUS include might be enough for you to spend the extra few dollars.

Dual GPU cards are good, but they still aren’t the most practical solution. This is especially the case when you compare a card like the GTX that comes in at about 30% cheaper and its ability to stay on the tail or outperform the dual GPU based cards in some situations.

Hopefully ASUS decide to mix it up in the near future with the release of a TOP model, which will not only carry with it higher clocks speeds but hopefully a full version game as well”.

Read the 20 page hands-on.

20 page ASUS GeForce 9600GT 512MB Graphics Card hands-on

So how good is the ASUS GeForce 9600GT 512MB Graphics Card? This is what Tweak Town wanted to find out with a hands-on review and their 20 page report goes into details that some may never need to know, but it one of the best reviews you will find on this ASUS video card.

They summed up by saying “normally we see a premium when it comes to ASUS pricing, but with the competitive pricing and decent cooling here, the card offers very good bang for bunk”. They rated the ASUS GeForce 9600GT 512MB an overall rating of 89%. Read their full 20-page review here.

Alienware Area-51 ALX CFX: twin 1GB Radeon HD 3870 X2 cards (four GPUs)

This is Alienware’s Area-51 ALX CFX which gives you twin 1GB Radeon HD 3870 X2 cards (a total of four GPUs) thanks to CrossFireX technology. What is cool about Alienware is the fact that their Aurora ALX rig supported quad SLI support 2 years ago.

The Area-51 ALX CFX features a 1,000-watt power supply, optional Blu-ray burner, a load of HDD choices, up to 4GB of RAM, a 3.0GHz Core 2 Extreme QX9650 processor and of course the twin 1GB Radeon HD 3870 X2 video cards. Expect to pay at least $5,649 for a CrossFireX-equipped setup.

Source: Read | Via

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