We must admit that in recent times we’ve unfairly neglected gamers with limited budget that don’t have many possibilities to set a certain sum aside for purchasing some graphics card from higher price range. Let’s face it, nor ATi nor nVIDIA were much better. From launching of GeForce 8600GTS and 8600GT and their price drop, nVIDIA did very little for this category of users. As “greens” are for some time occupied only with renaming of their products even these new low-cost graphics cards didn’t bring anything new, except for model GeForce 9600GT.

Still, we couldn’t ignore new models from nVIDIA so we got three models for this test. Those cards have common mark – GeForce 9500GT. This graphics cards basically isn’t nothing more than renamed 8600GT but now default clocks are far less strict than they were in time of releasing 8600GT/8600GTS models. Anyway, nVIDIA at least tried that chip name doesn’t stay as G84, they elegantly renamed it to G96. So, what is actually that chip?


Reminder - G84/G96

It would be useful to remind you a bit of characteristics of G84 i.e. G96, which is the same thing, and it seems that we’ll be meeting this chip for some time. So, G96 GPU represents chip constituted from 314 million transistors and made in 65nm technology, which is actually disappointing. nVIDIA could at least for low-end chips traverse slowly on 55nm technology. Number of Stream Processors is still the same (32), number of ROPs is 16 and there are also 8 texture units. If you observe these facts, you’ll see that nothing is so far changed for G84. Basically that claim is correct, because the only difference is compatibility with PCI-Express 2.0 bus. To prevent total sameness of GeForce 9500GT with 8600GT, nVIDIA regulated a bit higher clocks for new model. Declared clocks for 9500GT are: 550MHz for GPU, 1400MHz for Stream Processors and 1600MHz for DDR3 Memory. Still, these are only guidelines for manufacturers and many of them disobeyed those "rules".


ASUS EN9500GT 512 MB MAGIC HDMI

Asus graphics cards from Magic series are representatives of mainly multimedia oriented cards, while performances by default were in second plan. This card is classic example of this claim because of presence of HDMI port, but also there are one DVI and VGA which is for graphics card in this class exceptional characteristic that covers all possible connection interfaces. Of course some restrictions must have been done. This card has DDR2 memory and those 512MB, clearly marked on package, are only marketing trick since this card with its 128-bit bus and pretty much slow memory at 1000MHz, cannot in any way perceive benefits that such amount of VRAM could brought.

In package you will find nothing more from basic bundle: cables and manual. We must admit that we liked the fan very much. It additionally reduces temperature on already cold GPU and that is the 13°C lower temperature that Asus advertises as “ASUS Powerful Fansink”. We have to believe Asus on word for now, because we didn’t test referent card to verify that claim. Anyway ASUS EN9500GT 512 MB MAGIC HDMI turned out as extremely cold and quiet, which many users will appreciate. Moreover it’s not power hungry, just like 8600GT, and it doesn’t need any additional power connectors while maximum power consumption sums humbly at 50W which is for 7W lower than power consumption for 8600GT. Overclock session went just fine, although VRAM is made for anything but for overclock and obstructed us all the way. The final overclocking results are: 750MHz for GPU, 1800MHz for SPs and 1150MHz for memory.


BIOSTAR Sigma Gate 9500GT DDR2 (V9502GT51)

Opposite to Asus, BIOSTAR introduced Sigma Gate 9500GT DDR2 (V9502GT51) as very undefined graphics card that doesn’t have Asus’ multimedia possibilities and on the other hand keeps usage of cheaper than ever DDR2 memory in amount of, again quite unnecessary, 512MB memory with 2ns response.

Clocks are similar to Asus Magic model and the same goes for bundle that contains nothing that should be specifically mentioned. Sigma Gate 9500GT has passive cooling solution and cooling profile is quite unexpectedly big and reminded us to those on passive GeForce 8600GT from Gainward. Biostar favors that gold-green combination when they’re not using their default design, and we all think that Biostar’s design have certain “Chinese appearance”. Cooling system showed as great in solidly ventilated case and if you plan some bigger overclock than you should purchase some ultra silent fan that has 12cm in diameter like for example Cooler Master Silent: the goal is not to disturb silence that already exists, and you might also get your GPU up to excellent 770MHz. Unfortunately there is still problems with memory that “stays still and just won’t move“- it reached 1060MHz.