Flama22 wrote:
I think the 320MB 8800GTS cards were slower than the 8800GT's but the newer G92 8800GTS's are faster than both which makes it confusing for consumers. If you are comparing the 9600GT to an older 8800GTS then it could be faster but compared to the other two 8800 series cards it should be slower.
That's exactly right; the older g80 8800 cards (come in 320 or 640 meg versions) are slower than the newer g92 8800 cards. The new g92 8800gts's are faster than g92 8800gt cards. So it goes like this:
g92 8800gts > g92 8800gt > g80 8800gts
And to confuse things more, the g80 8800ultra and gtx 768meg cards are about on par with the g92 8800gt, but a hell of a lot more expensive and power hungry.
The 9600gt's are actually about on par, in terms of fps in games, with the g80 8800gts's. They are meant to hit between the 8600gts and the 8800gt, thus lower than the 8800gt cards. The link provided earlier in this thread by sbeeze shows that the 9600gt gives slightly less fps than the 320m 8800gts (although its a factory overclocked card in that link).
I gave ronedogg a link a few weeks ago in his forsale thread that showed similar data;
http://reviews.cnet.com/graphics-cards/ ... 64307.html
the 320meg 8800gts is slightly better than the 9600gt in 3dmark06 and in fps in games.
If it were me; I would have kept the 8800gts and saved my money for a more significant card upgrade like a 9800. If I were buying for a new system and didn't have a vid card already, than the 9600gt is a good bang for the buck. But then again the g92 8800gt 512m cards are coming down in price, less than $200 now, so its still the best performance-for-dollar-ratio card out there.
edit:
fyi; a certain big box store has xfx and evga 8800gt 512m cards on for $199.99