Accessories
I’m not going to go into a huge amount of detail about what else is included in the Foxconn 9600GT-512NOC package. It’s actually exactly the same of the package included in our previous Foxconn 9800GTX review. Included is a general setup manual, and two CDs. The main CD includes a near-as-makes-no-difference nVidia driver (unless you don’t have internet), and the Foxware overclocking utility. The secondary CD contains a Drive copying utility and some CD Drive Emulation software that is along the lines of Daemon Tools.
Under The Hood
With all this talk of the exterior of the Foxconn 9600GT-512NOC video card, I thought it was about time to peel back the cooler and check out what’s underneath. Once again there was a large number of screws used to hold the cooler on. Also being repeated is the overly generous amount of thermal goop applied to the core.
Thankfully this application was much easier to clean off, and eventually I’ll be able to use a much more elegant application of some decent thermal paste. As for the core itself, it’s NVIDIA’s new/old G94 chip. The G94 is actually newer than the G92 that is used in the 9800 GTX, but being less powerful than the G92 it’s more of a baby brother. For those that are keeping track, the G80 is the old chip that was used in the 8800 GTX, as well as the 8800 GTS 640/320 models.
As I noted earlier, Foxconn overclocked this card at the factory. Both the core and memory received a minor performance boost. The core was pushed to 700MHz, a 7% increase in raw speed. As for the memory it was bolstered an additional 10%, for an effective speed of 2000MHz.
With these factory overclocks, one would think that you need a robust power management system. Not really, since as I mentioned the core is less powerful then that found on the 9800 GTX. Still Foxconn went with a series of solid capacitors, allowing for more stable control of the electricity needed to run this card. Hopefully all this attention to detail translates to good results in our suite of benchmarks.
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