This is a pretty good time for PC gamers, especially when it comes to graphics cards. With two impressive products like the GeForce 8800 GT and Radeon HD 3870, gamers can see some solid performance in high-end DX9 games and playable performance in DX10 games without spending a fortune. In fact, it would only cost somewhere in the neighborhood of $250.

But $200 is somewhat of a "hard ceiling" for many PC owners. Sure they want to play some games, and they want them to look good and run well. But they don't have 24-inch widescreen monitors, they don't have superfast quad-core processors, and they can't yet justify spending more than $200 for a graphics card. The sub-$200 market is big, and the GeForce 8600-based products simply weren't cutting it anymore—not with the truly excellent Radeon HD 3850 coming in at well under $200 and blowing away the competition in that price range.

Finally we have Nvidia's answer, the GeForce 9600 GT. Based on the G94 chip, it is quite similar to the G92-based GeForce 8800 GT. The most striking difference is the reduction in shader units comes down to 64. But with aggressive clock speeds and a 256-bit memory interface, it is otherwise a very robust card.

Today we review EVGA's "SSC" version of the GeForce 9600 GT, a factory-overclocked version that should give gamers on a budget a reason to smile. — Continue reading on ExtremeTech.com

For more on the eVGA GeForce 9600 GT SSC, check out our sister site Extremetech.com