Nvidia Launches 9600 cards: Why we will see more and more “mid-ranged” graphics cardsFebruary 21, 2008

Nvidia released the new 9600GT graphics card today, and has been proclaimed the new “king of the sub $200 cards.” I think this is a sign of things to come, with the mid range cards being released first, and the higher end, more powerful cards being released later, if at all. Without AMD producing a competitive(both in price and performance) card, Nvidia will continue to make small changes to their current high end line without making drastic improvements on performance.

The current top of the line AMD product, the 3870 fails to compete with the top Nvidia cards at high resolutions. Most people who are interested in high end game performance have larger screens which makes Nvidia the only practical choice. The problem with the lack of an AMD competitor on the high end scale is that it lacks the “drop down” performance effect. What this means is that in the past as the two companies have had similarly performing cards, they would continue to produce more powerful cards, allowing these previous high end cards to drop in price and provide an excellent mid-range card. Without AMD providing competition on the high end both companies have to focus mostly on their mid-ranged cards, which decreases the focus on the higher end cards and forces them to produce lower quality cards at higher prices.

Most people are aware that this is a problem and have realized its impact on the graphics card market. However, my question arises from why people demand an increase in performance from Nvidia and AMD. It becomes apparent that the games themselves push these companies into producing more powerful cards, not exactly the competition between AMD and Nvidia. This competition does have an effect on the quality of the cards, and more particularily the price, but performance should continue to increase as game developers demand more and more powerful components.

However, the 9600 makes for an attractive mid range card, and certainly the best bang-for-buck under $200. One thing to keep in mind is although the 8800 256MB card may seem attractive, there are many times when the limitations on memory and memory bandwidth make a significant difference in performance. Check out the reviews on TomsHardware, AnandTech, and BitTech to see specific benchmarks.

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