When the Smoke Clears & Prices Settle: GeForce 9600 GT vs. Radeon HD 3870
by Anand Lal Shimpi on February 22, 2008 12:00 AM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
Yesterday saw the introduction of NVIDIA’s GeForce 9 series of GPUs, starting with the GeForce 9600 GT. Carrying a MSRP of $169 - $189, the GeForce 9600 GT was designed to fill a void in NVIDIA’s product lineup. The GeForce 8600, NVIDIA’s original sub-$200 competitor was being sorely beaten by AMD’s Radeon HD 3850. The GeForce 9600 GT was introduced to rectify the situation.
Had the world remained the same, the GeForce 9600 GT would have competed with and done a good job of destroying the Radeon HD 3850. However, AMD didn’t remain still and quietly reduced the prices of its Radeon HD 3800 series GPUs in the channel. The GeForce 9600 GT no longer was a competitor of the Radeon HD 3850, but rather up against the 3870.
A 256MB Radeon HD 3850 will set you back around $150, while the 512MB models are $170 parts. Stock clocked GeForce 9600 GTs are doing a good job of hovering right at $179.99, while factory overclocked cards will set you back closer to $200. The Radeon HD 3870 has now dropped to below $200 and we even found one for about the same price as a 9600 GT. The table below is a small sample of what we found at some popular e-tailers:
| Vendor | ATI Radeon HD 3870 | NVIDIA GeForce 9600 GT | eVGA GeForce 9600 GT SSC |
| Newegg | $184.99 | $179.99 | $209.99 |
| mwave | $209.90 | $179.90 | N/A |
| NCIX | $189.92 | $179.00 | $204.13 |
| Tiger Direct | $199.99 | $199.99 | N/A |
| ZipZoomfly | $224.99 | $179.99 | N/A |
| Average | $201.96 | $183.95 | $207.06 |
On average the Radeon HD 3870 is more expensive than the GeForce 9600 GT. If you look at absolute lowest pricing, the Radeon is within $5 of the 9600 GT, making these two competitors.
Given the most recent pricing data, we took a closer look at Radeon HD 3870 vs. GeForce 9600 GT performance. Our testbed remained identical to what we used in our launch article, we’ve merely added a few more game tests. We stuck to a single resolution per title, so for resolution scaling have a look back at our original GeForce 9600 GT review.
The Test
| CPU: | 2 x Intel Core 2 Extreme QX9775 (3.2GHz/1600MHz) |
| Motherboard: | Intel D5400XS (Intel 5400) |
| Chipset: | Intel 5400 |
| Chipset Drivers: | Intel 8.1.1.1010 (Intel) |
| Hard Disk: | Seagate 7200.9 300GB SATA |
| Memory: | 2 x 2GB Micron FB-DIMM DDR2-8800 |
| Video Card: | ATI Radeon HD 3870 NVIDIA GeForce 9600 GT EVGA NVIDIA GeForce 9600 GT SSC |
| Video Drivers: | ATI: Catalyst 8.2 NVIDIA: 174.12 |
| Desktop Resolution: | 1920 x 1200 |
| OS: | Windows Vista Ultimate 64-bit |
Game Test Settings
| Game | Resolution | AA | AF | Detail Settings |
| Bioshock | 1600 x 1200 | 0X | 1X | Highest in-game |
| Call of Duty 4 | 1600 x 1200 | 0X | 16X | Highest in-game |
| Crysis | 1600 x 1200 | 0X | 1X |
High Quality defaults |
| ET: Quake Wars | 1600 x 1200 | 0X | 16X | Highest in-game |
| ET: Quake Wars | 1600 x 1200 | 4X | 16X | Highest in-game |
| Half Life 2: Episode Two | 2560 x 1600 | 0X | 16X | Highest in-game |
| Half Life 2: Episode Two | 2560 x 1600 | 4X | 16X | Highest in-game |
| Oblivion | 1600 x 1200 | 0X | 16X | Ultra High Quality defaults |
| Oblivion | 1600 x 1200 | 4X | 16X | Ultra High Quality defaults |
| S.T.A.L.K.E.R. | 1600 x 1200 | 0X | 16X | Highest in-game |
| Unreal Tournament 3 | 2560 x 1600 | 0X | 16X | Highest in-game |
| World in Conflict | 1600 x 1200 | 0X | 0X | Medium Quality defaults (with Heat Haze, Debris Physics and DX10 Enabled) |
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madgonad - Friday, February 22, 2008 - link
Is it even possible to benchmark an MMO due to the required server interaction?Sinerider - Friday, February 22, 2008 - link
I've seen several OLD benchmarks. Heck, I've used FRAPS plenty of times... I suppose there are problems with latency, connection, etc - but it'd be nice to get ballparks between brands.leexgx - Friday, February 22, 2008 - link
mmo norm need more cpu then any thing els and an ok video cardSinerider - Friday, February 22, 2008 - link
I've always found it strange that nobody seems to include MMORPG's in the game performance review sections - WOW, EQII - these are games that draw high upgrade ratio's, and when I did play, I was always desperately looking for larger review bases that included them - especially EQII.Probably doesn't matter much because it's an old game, but sheesh - hundreds of thousands, or in WOW's case, millions play, and a tonne are always upgrading - would seem worthwhile to me.
More directly related to the article: It's a tough call for me between this new 9600 or waiting to see what AMD has up it's sleeve... either way, looks like I'll be holding off just a little bit longer for an upgrade. I would say though, this seems to be a great time for midrange!
-Sinerider
wht1986 - Friday, February 22, 2008 - link
I agree. I play EQII about 95% of my gaming time. I am using an OC MSI 3870 now @ 1920x1200, but like any geek (err computer enthusiast) I always want to see more framerates/ete candy/etc. Would love to see an eq2 comparison.DigitalFreak - Sunday, February 24, 2008 - link
EQ2's engine was created when CPUs were projected to reach 10Ghz by now. It uses the CPU for stuff that should definitely be done on the GPU. Having a faster CPU will get you much more of a performance increase than upgrading beyond a Geforce 7x series.KnightProdigy - Saturday, February 23, 2008 - link
MMOs are not included as network speed and server lag come into play and do not accurately depict HW perfomance numbers.LostPassword - Friday, February 22, 2008 - link
clubit has better prices for 9600gt, but shipping is slow for meStupidMonkey - Friday, February 22, 2008 - link
how would this compare to a 7800GT?leexgx - Friday, February 22, 2008 - link
my 8800 gtx is faster then 2x 7800 gtx cards in SLI so 1 7800 ant goign to be an show stopper the 9600 gt is just under 8800 GT speeds (but do rember that 9600 gt 64, as the 8800 gt has 112? so when the 9800 type of cards come out thay should be 2x as fast as Nvidia stated then an 8800)