PNY VERTO GeForce 9600 GT 512MB PCIe SLI-Ready Graphics Card VCG96512GXPB

List Price: $169.99 Discount Price: $148.98

Features:

• 9600GT 512MB, BUS Technology PCI Express 2.0 , Memory Amount 512 MB ,Memory Interface 256-bit , Memory Bandwidth (GB/sec) 57.6 , Fill Rate (billion pixels/sec.) 20.8 , Core Clock (MHz) 650MHz , Memory Frequency (effective) 1.8GHz
• NVIDIA unified architecture, Full Microsoft® DirectX® 10 Shader Model 4.0 support, NVIDIA SLI® -Ready
• 16x full-screen anti-aliasing, True 128-bit floating point high dynamic-range (HDR) lighting, NVIDIA® Quantum Effects™ physics processing technology
• PCI Express ® 2.0 support, Two dual-link DVI outputs support two 2560x1600 resolution displays,
• NVIDIA PureVideo® HD technology, HDCP Capable, OpenGL® 2.1 support

Customer Reviews:

Concerns about graphics quality [Posted on 2008-04-11]
I purchased this to replace an ATI x1950 pro in my Vista box. Game performance is great but, for some unknown reason, text quality in desktop applications (IE, Word, Excel, etc.) is terrible (that's with a DVI connection to a 24" LCD using native resolution). I'm hoping this is a driver issue or defective card and will update this review if anything changes.

decent card, but fan-noise at bootup [Posted on 2008-04-16]
The PNY 9600GT is just like any other NVidia 9600GT (stock) card. One thing I don't like -- when you turn on your PC, the fan spins at full (100%) speed, and though not as loud as some other video-cards, the noise is there.

I much prefer PNY's older cards (like the 7900GS) which powered up with the fan at minimal speed. (Hopefully this gets fixed with a BIOS update.)

Great choice for 9600GT. Silent cooler. [Posted on 2008-04-17]
I purchased this card as an upgrade from an ATI X850XT in my Inspiron 530 desktop. The power of the card is noticeable even in graphics intensive web browsing. My Windows Vista performance score went from 4.9 in graphics to 5.9 (the max) and I haven't had any issues with driver conflicts. The card does spin up to full speed until loading Windows (to load the drivers), but it isn't really that loud anyway. Once in Windows, the card is effectively silent. To offer a comparison, my IBM Thinkpad Laptop is louder than my entire desktop (Intel Q6600 with stock cooler, case fan) side by side. The card is significantly quieter than stock cards I've owned in the past, and just as quiet as my X850XT with an AFTERMARKET Zalman GPU cooler.

On a separate note, the card is quite long. It is precisely 9.15 inches from back of case to the end of the card. Make sure you have that much room in your case and won't be blocked by hard drives or otherwise.

great card [Posted on 2008-04-17]
called service got threw fast talked to john paul vera he was alot of help you should have power supply with 12v 26amps are better card needs power for games my picture is great fast and stable

Fast card, good deal, huge improvement over my 7900GS. [Posted on 2008-05-02]
My wife was complaining that The Sims 2 with all expansions under Vista would get slow and laggy anytime it snowed or rained in the game. In fact, it would get almost unplayable to where she turned snow and rain off completely. TS2 is harder on the CPU than video card, and the one I had was very fast to begin with (by 2007 standards), it was the BFG GeForce 7900 GS OC 256MB PCI Express. Anyhow, I was doubtful a new video card would really help, but I couldn't resist the after-rebate price on this card so I went ahead and bought it. It's a night and day difference, zero lag and super fast with all settings maxed, anti-aliasing/smoothing maxed, and resolution set to my monitor's native 1680x1050. The card itself is quiet and the fan is variable speed temperature controlled. It is a long card and a tight fit, with the power connector plugged in, it extends into the hard drive bay, so it's a good thing I didn't have a drive in that particular bay. I use DVI and the text and graphics are crisp as can be. It only has a 3-year warranty, but I think that should be more than long enough for anyone who likes to stay semi-current.

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