A little more than a year after the release of the GeForce 8600, which stirred little enthusiasm as Nvidia offered a strict minimum in terms of performances, here we finally have a promising mid-level GeForce 8. This test also gives us an opportunity to take a look at the Radeon HD 3650 whose position is between the entry and mid-level.GeForce 8 9 versus the Radeon HD 3000
For the launch of this new mid-level card, Nvidia decided to introduce the GeForce 9 family starting with this GeForce 9600 GT. The architecture is identical to that of the GeForce 8 and therefore the change in product line is purely aesthetic. Of course, the different name has a psychological advantage, especially with novices and OEMs, as buyers are willing to pay more for a seemingly new product.
For our part, we would have liked to have seen DirectX 10.1 support in the GeForce 9 line ; however, we should be realistic. As much as its integration is relatively simple, it’s not too interesting for Nvidia strategically. Including DirectX 10.1 support would mean giving credit to this technology and therefore to AMD products which already have an entire line (the Radeon HD 3000) adapted to this standard. Nvidia thus prefers conserving this technological delay. This is in order to downplay the interest of DirectX 10.1 and therefore those AMD products that feature it such as the Radeon HD 3400 and 3600 which are similar to the Radeon HD 2400 and 2600 except they have additional DirectX 10.1 and PCI Express 2.0 support.
Furthermore, GeForce 9 cards could have been based on PCI Express 2.0 support, but the fact that Nvidia had to quickly position itself to counter a promising Radeon HD 3800 prevented it from working on the coherence of its new line. The result was the release of the GeForce 8800 GT which could have been part of the GeForce 9 family. And finally despite all of this, Nvidia still wasn’t really able to rival the Radeon HD 3800s, mainly the 3850 version, which was offered for a significantly lower price. While Nvidia tried to position its 256 MB GeForce 8800 GT versus this Radeon, it was more or less a futile attempt as their product wasn’t adapted to this market. So, finally we have the GeForce 9600 GT which fills this hole in Nvidia’s line.
New chips
To create the GeForce 9600 GT, Nvidia needed a new GPU, the G94, which is more or less half of a G92 which already equips the GeForce 8800 GT and GTS 512 MB. It therefore has 64 scalar processors versus 128 for the latter. On the other hand, it keeps the 256 bit memory bus which is a first for a mid-level Nvidia GPU. In the end, we have a G94 with twice as many processing units and a memory bus that is twice as wide as the G84 which it replaces and that equips the GeForce 8600. Combined with a more advanced 65 nanometer fabrication process, it also enables achieving higher frequencies and the creation of a very interesting card – or at least this is what we are going to verify.
As for AMD, the Radeon HD 3600, or RV635, is a 55 nanometer version of the Radeon HD 2600, or RV630, which was engraved in 65 nanometers. AMD thus continues to aggressively use new fabrication processes to reduce production costs. It would have been nice, however, if there were a bit more muscle on this chip so that the RV635 could assert itself a little more.
