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Nvidia have launched the 9600GSO to please gamers on a tight budget.
It comes in two flavors, the 384MB version and the 768MB version. Today we’ll be reviewing the PALIT 9600GSO 768 MB Sonic Edition. Will this card perform as good as its specs promise?
Specification
Since this is the Sonic Edition from Palit, the card comes factory overclocked from the stock 550/1600 to 600/1800 on the core/memory. That’s almost 10% boost right out of the box, not bad. The rest of the specs are as follows:
The Palit 9600 GSO Sonic is based on the same G92 core as the 8800GT with some modifications, of course. This card has more memory than the 9600GT but the bus width has been cut down from 256bit to 192bit (reminds me of the 8800GS). How this will affect gaming performance, is something we’ll have to wait and see.
It comes with your standard fare of accessories and cables. The following is included in the bundle:
-Quick installation guide
-VGA driver disk
-DVI-VGA Adapter
-DVI-HDMI Adapter
-Component and Composite out dongle
-PCI-E to Molex power adapter
-SPDIF cable
The Palit 9600GSO is the same length as the 9600GT, and coming from the Sonic line, it features the same massive heat sink covering the core. Unlike the 9600GT Sonic, the 9600GSO has heat sinks to cool the 3 phase voltage regulators as well. Palit has also used the same green reference board specified by Nvidia, so not many changes there.
On the back we have another plate for added cooling. This definitely helps in dissipating heat plus it will look really cool in a windowed cabinet.
On the connectivity side, you have the standard dual link DVI-D out ports supporting a max resolution of 2560×1600 and a TV-out port. This card also comes with a DVI-HDMI adapter, so you can enjoy full HD on your TV. As you’ve noticed, it is a dual slot cooler and has vents for exhausting warm air. This is a good feature but the only problem is that people with smaller cases may have trouble making it fit, plus it will take up the adjacent slot.
At the rear, we have the 6-pin PCI-E power connecter which provides the extra juice needed to run the card.
If you look near the heat sink fan connector, you’ll notice that there is a speaker installed. This is to warn the user if he has forgotten to connect the PCI-E power cable; a nifty feature we normally don’t see on graphics cards, let alone a mid-range one.
