When the Smoke Clears & Prices Settle: GeForce 9600 GT vs. Radeon HD 3870

The Value in Overclocking: EVGA’s 9600 GT SSC

EVGA is currently shipping the highest clocked GeForce 9600 GT. Dubbed the EVGA GeForce 9600 GT SSC, this card runs its core at 740MHz and memory at 1.950GHz (data rate).

You can buy this card directly from EVGA for $219.99, or if you shop around you'll shave off about $10, pricing it 12.6% higher than the average GeForce 9600 GT. Today's question? Is it worth it?

We ran the same benchmarks from the previous page on the EVGA GeForce 9600 GT SSC card and compared it directly to the stock GeForce 9600 GT:

The overclocked EVGA actually yielded some very healthy gains in the 10 - 12% range in most of our tests, the only exceptions being World in Conflict and Quake Wars which were both around 2%. On average, EVGA managed to boost performance approximately 10% after a 12.6% increase in board price.

Given that this is a price-sensitive mid-range part, any significant increase in price had better be more than worth its corresponding increase in performance. The problem is that at $208, you're only $10 away from an 8800 GT 512MB which should have no problems outperforming the 9600 GT. The 9600 GT makes the most sense at the $169 - $179 price range, and at those price points you're going to be dealing with stock clock speeds.