The ECS E9500GT took the plunge as a replacement card for the 8000 series mid range cards. As we have seen from the benchmarks, this G96 performs pretty well at 550MHz core memory clock and GDDR3 memory clock of 1600 MHZ. It also has 32 Stream Processor and has 512MB GDDR3 memory. Shader clock runs at 1375MHz.

Performance wise, this card performs pretty ok. When we overclock it, it can easily displace the 8600GTS. We can safely say that this card is around 5% slower than a 8600GTS in synthetic benchmarks. We have also seen that in some games, the performance actually performs better than the 8600GTS.

ECS kept the design simple. In fact, even the package seems to be a bit on the bare. There is just the CD, connectors and no games bundled with it. The card also runs pretty cool with a pretty quiet fan. Temperatures are also pretty good. The card runs at 50 deg on idle and gradually raise to a maximum of 65 deg celsius doing the Atitool 3D view test.

If you notice, the card's SLI connector isn't the DUAL SLI connector type. Thus, don't expect a 3 way SLI on this card.

In terms of technology, G96 does not support DX10.1 and SM 4.1. The card is also different from ATi cards which comes with an embedded audio controller for HDMI out. If you intend to use the card as a HTPC video processor, you would need to channel the audio from your audio card to the audio pins located on the card.

In conclusion, this card is more suitable as a mid range replacement to playback / decode your HD programmes with low CPU utilisation. The only regret is the audio, you might want to channel the audio out from your on board SPDIF to a HIFI rather than channeling it out from the HDMI.

Price ~ 100 USD

Pros

• Cost Performance ratio
• Runs pretty cool
• Audio cable and HDMI converter provided
• No external power connector required

Cons

• No DX10.1 / No SM4.1
• No Integrated HDMI with 5.1 output
• Might not support 3 way SLI

Ratings

Here are my ratings out of 10 stars.