Final Thoughts & Conclusion

For a mid-range video card, the Palit GeForce 9600 GSO Sonic definitely packs a punch. Compared to the previous generation of nVidia cards, the 9600 GSO Sonic holds its own, and only slightly lags behind the Radeon HD3870 family of videocards as well.

One test that blew me away was 3dMark Vantage, where the 9600 GSO sonic blew past all the other videocards I've reviewed previously. I'm not sure whether to attribute this to nVidia's latest drivers, or simply the pure power of this card. Scores for my other tests, however, push it back to where it should be, a mid-range offering.

Palit may be new to the Americas, but I think everyone can expect that they'll soon grab a large chunk of the market over the next several years with more cards featuring the inginuitey and effort they put in to this mid-range card.

Pros

• PCI-Express 2.0 Support
• Keeps up with GeForce 8800GTX
• Factory overclocked and double the normal RAM
• Best bang for the buck
• HDCP / HDMI compliant for watching HD movies on HD displays
• Unique and efficient cooler
• Looks cool!

Cons

• Cooler design takes up more space than some cards

Rating

10/10