Neutered 9600GSO

[Denithor]

ASUS 9600GSO with 512MB 128-bit GDDR2 (1000MHz)

Wow, never seen a board partner switch memory interface before!

Stock bandwidth: 38.4 GB/s
ASUS 8800GS: 16.0 GB/s

If they can make changes like this, how come no-one made a 256-bit 7600GT? Probably would have matched/beaten the 7900GT at much lower cost.

EDIT: And just to confirm, ASUS has the card listed on their website.

Check out these claims:

ASUS Exclusive Glaciator Fansink

Carrying gigantic 512M memory on board

ASUS Splendid:
Watching movies on PC is as good as on Top-of-the-line consumer television

ASUS Gamer OSD:
Real-time overclocking, benchmarking and video capturing in any PC game!

ASUS Smart Doctor:
Your intelligent hardware protection and overclocking tool

I want two with a gigantic 512MB of GDDR2 for SLI!! I'm sure they overclock great, especially on memory speed!! Ship them now!!!

 

[SlowSpyder]

I doubt a 7600GT with more memory bandwidth would beat a 7900GT (since they are already a 256bit memory card with twice the pixel pipelines).

Also, I click your link and it takes me to a 9600GSO...? I'm not totally up to date on the Nvidia stuff right now (they sure do have a lot of parts out there!) so I'm not sure if that is the same thing or something... but it certainly is not titled '8800GS'.

 

[Denithor]

Edited for "oops" -- had 8800GS on the brain, they're actually the same card (9600GSO is just a rebadge of the 8800GS).

I can barely believe a card maker would destroy a card like this and not change the name.

 

[AzN]

This card really should be called 8600gts+

It must be 8 rop 64SP and 128bits. Another 1/4 of the clusters disabled if it's 128 bit bus.

 

[bunnyfubbles]

Its one thing to neuter a card (ie deprave it of the resources it is used to having), but doubling the memory architecture on a lesser part most likely won't do anything even if it was possible, the only thing board producers can do as far as increase performance is supply much faster, compatible ram (ie they couldn't simply slap on GDDR5 to a chip that can't address it)

It also makes more sense to do it this way...ASUS is ripping off uneducated consumers because they think they're getting a 9600GSO when in reality they're getting a card that is less than that, and ultimately cheaper for ASUS to produce because they simplified/neutered the hardware. Whereas if ASUS engineered a midrange part to compete on a much higher level, it wouldn't necessarily be as cost effective as say taking that already higher level part and neutering that part to perforrm where the super midrange part would...

 

[Denithor]

So would this potentially fall under some kind of false advertising or something? I mean, selling a card as a 9600GSO when it won't perform like all the other cards out there with that label is a dirty deal in my mind.

 

[Elcs]

No-one remembers Sapphire with their 128mb 9800Pros?

The 128-bit bus and the 256-bit bus... or am I the one remembering incorrectly?

 

[bunnyfubbles]

Well Newegg does state quite clearly that its 128bit memory, and ASUS also offers this information on the product's page...and as long as the GPU is an actual 9600GSO from nVidia it doesn't really matter that ASUS neuters it, it still is a 9600GSO chip, its up to the consumer to know what they're getting into. While it is a bit shady, such products really are generally cheaper (this one is going for $100, or $80 after rebate), so the uneducated consumer might think they're getting a great deal, in reality they're really only getting a fair deal, albeit a bit unfairly.

In the end, I think the consumers of these cards a generally going to be running much lower resolutions anyways and thus the bandwidth really won't be as important. In fact I think the extra frame buffer might be a bit better so this move by ASUS might not be that bad after all, although I'd say the use of GDDR2 is probably more of a crime than limiting the architecture.

 

[AzN]

It just won't be able to use the vram effectively since it won't be fast enough to run 1600x1200 4xAA where 512mb vram comes in handy. The real 8800gs and 9600gso is actually quite content in the mid-range dept. Easily matching 8800gt when overclocked. Not the best card to do AA with but raw performance wise it does quite well and matching 3870 and beating down on 9600gt at stock speeds. This should be 50% slower than the original gso and gs cards.

I don't know how they can call this a 9600gso when it's only 8 ROP 64SP 128bit bus. It should be called 9600 suck version or something of that nature.

 

[idiotekniQues]

i would wait for the spayed version

 

[toyota]

Originally posted by: Azn
It just won't be able to use the vram effectively since it won't be fast enough to run 1600x1200 4xAA where 512mb vram comes in handy. The real 8800gs and 9600gso is actually quite content in the mid-range dept. Easily matching 8800gt when overclocked. Not the best card to do AA with but raw performance wise it does quite well and matching 3870 and beating down on 9600gt at stock speeds. This should be 50% slower than the original gso and gs cards.

I don't know how they can call this a 9600gso when it's only 8 ROP 64SP 128bit bus. It should be called 9600 suck version or something of that nature.

please show some benchmarks where the 8800gs/9600gso is "beating down" on a 9600gt. all the stuff I saw show the 8800gs being slower than the 9600gt 90-95% of the time. thats the reason the 9600gso(8800gs) is cheaper than the 9600gt.

 

[AzN]

Originally posted by: toyota

Originally posted by: Azn
It just won't be able to use the vram effectively since it won't be fast enough to run 1600x1200 4xAA where 512mb vram comes in handy. The real 8800gs and 9600gso is actually quite content in the mid-range dept. Easily matching 8800gt when overclocked. Not the best card to do AA with but raw performance wise it does quite well and matching 3870 and beating down on 9600gt at stock speeds. This should be 50% slower than the original gso and gs cards.

I don't know how they can call this a 9600gso when it's only 8 ROP 64SP 128bit bus. It should be called 9600 suck version or something of that nature.

please show some benchmarks where the 8800gs/9600gso is "beating down" on a 9600gt. all the stuff I saw show the 8800gs being slower than the 9600gt 90-95% of the time. thats the reason the 9600gso(8800gs) is cheaper than the 9600gt.

You probably saw AA benches where 9600gt has the bandwidth advantage. In many of the games 8800gs is quite strong. Sometimes 9600gt wins but lot of them 8800gs wins especially without AA.

Here's a review where they benchmark without AA. Out of the all those games 9600gt wins 1 game, ties another and 8800gs wins 3 games.

http://www.tweaktown.com/revie...s_top_384mb/index.html

Just because a product is cheaper doesn't mean it's going to be slower. Just look at 4850 @ 150 after rebate it easily neck and neck with 9800gtx which Nvidia had to drop it to $200 to compete. 8800gs and 9600gt are different beasts with different configurations that excels in their own way to beat out each other. 8800gs excels in texture throughput and processing power which in turns into better raw performer. 9600gt has the bigger bandwidth and ROP which does better with AA and closes the gap in higher resolutions.