Gigabyte GV-N96TSL-1GI GeForce 9600GT SilentCell Review :: Features

• G94 chip
• 505 million transistors
• 240mm2
• 64 Stream Processors
• 650MHz Core clock speed
• 1625MHz Shader Processor
• 900MHz Memory clock speed
• 1GB GDDR3 memory
• 256-bit memory interface
• Dual-Link DVI
• Silent Cell
• Gamer HUD Lite
• DirectX 10.0
• OpenGL 2.1
• Ultra Durable VGA
• HDCP
• HDMI connection

Brand Name	GIGABYTE
Part Number	GV-N96TSL-1GI
Graphics Chip	G94
Core clock	650
Shader Clock	1625
SPs	64
Fabrication Process	65nm
Transistors	505 million
Memory clock	1800MHz
Memory bus	256-bit
Memory bandwidth	57.6GB/second
Memory Size	1024
ROPs	16
Texture Filtering Units	32
Texture Filtering Rate	20.8 Gigatexels/second
HDCP Support	Yes
HDMI Support	Yes
Connectors	Dual Link DVI, HDMI, VGA, TV-Out
RAMDACs	400MHz
Bus	PCI Express 2.0
Form Factor	Dual Slot
Power Connectors	6-pin power

GIGABYTE's card uses the tried and true G94 chip from NVIDIA. The chip is built on TSMC's 65 nanometer process and has 505 million transistors. This particular chip was manufactured on February 21, 2008. Some of the newer 9600GT cards may have a 55nm chip on it. The die size of the 9600GT is 240mm2.

In many ways the GeForce 9600GT can be considered half a 9800GTX with 64 Stream Processors, 16 ROPS, 32 Texture units compared to 128 SPS, 32 ROPs and 64 TMUS on the 9800GTX. This card is designed for the HTPC enthusiast and the silent PC enthusiast so the clock speeds of the card are the default 650MHz core/1625MHz Shader and 900MHz (1800MHz effective) memory clocks.

GIGABYTE has really gone all out on the cooling of the graphics card. Their Silent Pipe II graphics cards were well known for their silent running and heat dissipation. Their GV-N96TSL-1GI card has something new called SILENT CELL. SILENT CELL features the Lowest Thermal Resistance between heatpipes and fins, Crimping Layered Fins with Aluminum nodes and Cell-division architecture that amplifies natural convection.

The Silent Cell heatsink features ultra-thin layered fins with an extremely large surface area that covers the entire front of the video card. The fins are layered with aluminum nodes and a copper base to enhance the overall cooling capability of the card. GIGABYTE says their card can lower the temperature up to 18 degrees Celsius cooler than the reference fansink on the 9600GT via their Cell-division architecture. There are three heatpipes throughout the card.

Air comes in through the front of the card goes through the heatsink and pipes and out through the rear of the card into the case with air going through the fans on the rear. It is an elegant solution that works well in real life. The 9600GT reaches a temperature of 52C during idle operation and the temperature only rises about 10C during stress (3DMark Vantage 62C temperature recorded).

NVIDIA's chips are all fully DirectX 10.0 capable with support for Pixel Shader 4.0 and Vertex Shader 4.0 features. Microsoft released DirectX 10.1 with Service Pack 1 for Windows Vista. This is only supported by ATI cards, with a few S3 video cards thrown in. NVIDIA will need to support DirectX 10.1 when they release a DirectX 11 video card either later this year or next. In the meantime, the features of DirectX 10.1 mostly speed up performance and visual effects. As you might know, Ageia was a company that heavily promoted physics in games. Their PhysX accelerator was released but never really took off. NVIDIA bought the Ageia assets in 2008 and has released drivers that support games with PhysX effects in them. PhysX games like Mirror's Edge, Cryostasis, Sacred 2 and more make use of physics to show off destructible terrain, glass effects, smoke, fog and much more.