Karasu

Okay guys so here's the thing. Right now I'm working on getting the parts for my sig rig. But, for the time being I just want a cheap card to temporarily hold me over till about April that can also hold its own in games until I can afford to blow money on a GTX 260.

I have two cards I want to decide between and also a question or two.
Right now I am trying to decide between the following:

EVGA 512-P3-N860-TR GeForce 9600 GT 512MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Supported Video Card - Retail
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814130360

or the...

XFX PVT96OSDFH GeForce 9600 GSO 768MB 192-bit GDDR2 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Supported Video Card - Retail
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814150320

Which do you think I should get to play current games as best I can until I can afford to spend money on the GTX 260?

I intend to play games like Halo PC, Halo C.E., Red Faction, WoW, TimeShift, Crysis Warhead, The Orange Box, Project Snowblind, Left 4 Dead, Diablo II, and Diablo III once that baby comes out and Crysis eventually, and more.

How many watts does each card actually require?
Also which would be better to overclock for the price?

I was thinking maybe the 9600 GSO because it has 92 stream processors while the GT has 64 and I could just overclock the card more than the GT for the cheaper price.

Please give your thoughts and opinions on which card is better/i should get?

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j0z3

9600gt of course.

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The_Leetard179

The 9600gt is more powerful I believe

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Karasu

What would make it a better pick over the 9600 GSO?

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bartx

768MB 9600GSO is better. And these cards are very good clockers - it has 580/1000MHz clocks and probably you should be able to reach 700-750/1100MHz which gives nice boost. 9600GT often clocks from 650MHz only to 750MHz. And 9600GSO is cheaper

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E6420 @ 4629.82MHz

Celeron D347 @ 7360.14MHz

Ballistix PC8500 @ 1400MHz

CPU pots
http://www.overclock.net/dry-ice-liq...ew-series.html

darkspearxz

Remember the 768MB in the GSO is DDR2 not GDDR3. I still have my 2 6600GTs, one of them had 128mb of GDDR3 and the other had 512mb of DDR2. The GDDR3 one basically whiped the DDR2 one out. And that was the same card. The GT should be better than the GSO.

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bartx

I missed that In this case definately 9600GT. There are also cards with 768MB and DDR3 (made by Palit/Gainward).

__________________
E6420 @ 4629.82MHz

Celeron D347 @ 7360.14MHz

Ballistix PC8500 @ 1400MHz

CPU pots
http://www.overclock.net/dry-ice-liq...ew-series.html

Karasu

So the GDDR3 makes that huge of a difference? What would the power consumption on each card be is also something I would like to know, the power consumption of each isnt going to effect the decision im just curious.

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smoothjk

The GSO is cheaper, but the GT is a little better (the GSO has more stream processors, but is crippled in pretty much every other way).

I had a 9600GT, and I wasn't disappointed. Then again, if you're going to overclock at all and it's just going to be used to hold you over, maybe it'd be good to save your money.

bartx

Yes. DDR3 card has memory clocks about 1600-1800MHz, DDR2 card has 1000MHz and that's all. With 192-bit memory bus it's really small bandwith.

__________________
E6420 @ 4629.82MHz

Celeron D347 @ 7360.14MHz

Ballistix PC8500 @ 1400MHz

CPU pots
http://www.overclock.net/dry-ice-liq...ew-series.html