PNY VCG96512GXPB GeForce 9600 GT 512MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Supported Video Card - Retail

Thinking on RMA'ing it

Reviewed By: mark on 11/6/2008

Tech Level: somewhat high - Ownership: 1 week to 1 month

Pros: Inexpensive. Price to performance ratio if it lasts.

Cons: Did not like the latest drivers. Black screens in games and freezes. I dual boot Vista and XP. Same problems in both OS's.

Other Thoughts: First install nothing. Fan started up but no video signal. Had to re-seat it several times then it worked. Since I already had older drivers from my previous nvidia card it loaded those drivers and worked pretty well for the few games I play. Nvidia control panel was not working wouldn't let me adjust the settings so I updated drivers from Nvidia's website. Crashes and freezes and artifacts started right away. Anyway, not at all PNY's fault, I have been reading about a 10%+ failure of the chips nvidia used in these cards. So...it's a gamble...keep it or dump it.

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doing well so far

Reviewed By: CharlieBoy on 11/6/2008

Tech Level: average - Ownership: 1 month to 1 year

Pros: Worked out of the Box. I'm running these cards in SLI. One is the card mentioned above, and the other has a slightly different plastic bezel over it that covers the whole back side of the card where the exhaust vents are.
Just one card ran Crysis at all medium settings with no problems. W/ 2 cards, you can definitely turn some settings up. Half Life 2 looked like a dream. Every now and again it would drop frames(not really that noticeable), but I wonder if that's because the cards have to share bandwith on my motherboard (PCIE x16 got split to 8x each) or it can do with some nvidia driver settings...

Good card for a budget, but you could probably save up and get a GTX260 or 280 and be happy w/ just one of these.

Cons: Like they all said, these cards are a bit long (relocated my hard drives because of the SATA cables butting against the cards--luckily my case is full atx), and they push hot exhaust inside the case. I've got 5 case fans running besides 2 big 12cm cpu cooler and power supply fans so it's not so bad. I wish hybrid SLI was available for these cards and that they could "clock down" when at idle.

Other Thoughts: I'm running on an Athlon 64 X2 6000+ (stock speed) in a Gigabyte M570-SLI board w/ 4GB Fatality PC2-6400 @ 2.1V 5-4-4-15 2T. Vista Business 32-bit w/ goodies like Aero disabled.
3dmark 06 got me a score of around 11400.....oh well.

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Reviewed By: Frustrated User on 9/28/2008

Tech Level: somewhat high - Ownership: 1 month to 1 year

This user purchased this item from Newegg

Pros: It has great rendering capabilities, and it runs very cool, about 42 degrees c. It is great for the price.

Cons: After about a month whenever I would turn on the computer the fan on the card would become very loud and annoying. Then, two months after I bought it I turned on my computer and the card had died on me for no reason. I now have to go through an RMA with PNY. I am not very pleased with this hassle at all, a very bad card. I am dissappointed and frustrated.

Other Thoughts: The graphics are great, when it is running.

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