IIRC performance-wise they edge each other. 9600GT has lower power consumption, but HD3870 has better HD decoding.
Finally a review between 2 latest mid range cards!! Do anyone noticed that nVidia took a quiet approach to launch 9600? And strangely they deicided to launch a mid-range card first instead of a high end card first. Even its offcial website has no information on the 9 series cards.
If 9600GT costs about the same price as HD3870... Nvidia's GeForce 9600 GT graphics processor - The Tech Report - Page 1 9600GT gets my vote.
NGOHQ we have a Powercooler HD3850 that was reviewed last November and I am told Rege will have a 9600gt soon Looking forward to seeing the review here as well
bad bad bad nvidia..caught with pants down techPowerUp! Review :: NVIDIA's shady trick to boost the GeForce 9600GT :: Page 1 / 4 adrian..plz test if this is true or not
Hmm.. Logically, there's no reason for NVIDIA to cheat. I may be missing the point here but it looks like the only one to benefit would be the graphics card manufacturer employing the trick to make their cards look faster than the competitor, even at the same "clock speed".
They have done it more than once including in 2003 when I visited ATI. Terry and Chris were not impressed They suck at taking legal action on boards that don't fall under international law too
actually it happens to one of my XFX geforce 8800 gtx sample as well. nothing much to get mad la, really. probably related to how the clock generator and clock multiplier/divider work i supposed. the G80 (and G92) has a few frequency configurations running on the same die (shader, core..etc). perhaps 1mhz step increment just isn't possible. IMO, another "oh! AMD is lying about its K8 memory frequency" case.
To be honest, I don't see this being a problem for cards running at stock. The GeForce 9600 GT officially runs at 650 MHz core. Whether the driver reports it as 650 MHz or 700 MHz really isn't important. What's important is how fast it is in the games we play. Graphics card manufacturers have been selling cards with overclocked cores, so it doesn't make sense for them to lie about it, unless they just want to prove that their cards are "faster" than their competitors at the same clock speeds. Of course, if it's NVIDIA's fault (with the driver), then all we can say is their engineers do not know how to multiply!
so its not a big deal afterall looks like u guys recommend 96gt all the way..im gona wait for 3870 price drop to think which card to buy
We should have some numbers up on the 9600gt soon bro and so will Adrian by the sounds of it so you can compare