Computex 2008: Pre-show products

Gigabyte GeForce 9600 GT Dual Core

“If you've ever used an older Silent Pipe 3 graphics product from Gigabyte, you’ll know they were particularly heavy," Grace Chen, Product Manager for Gigabyte's graphics products, tells me as she hands me the Gigabyte GeForce 9600 GT Dual Core.

As she was handing me the card, she mentions that she’s been a gamer for years and now enjoys playing World of Warcraft and Counter-Strike. I'm sure you can imagine, I was fighting to keep control of my jaw after her “matter of fact” method of delivery and the fact I find it hard to imagine her shouting smack talk to n00bs.

“Now we have the Dual Core heatpipe solution that’s a lot lighter, and is not only passive but it cools better than the standard Nvidia solution too," she explained.

She was right - it is very light considering it’s a dual slot and there’s plenty of metal there. After several of the usual marketing slides highlighting a 7˚C drop in temperature I’m still a little cynical, because every passive solution I’ve ever used has completely depended on a case's inherent airflow to keep cool.


Personally I don't find it particularly appealing to look at and because there's no fan to push the air through the fins and out the back, I find it hard to visualise it working quite as effectively as other passive solutions (like the Sapphire Radeon HD 3870 Ultimate, for example).

MSI 9600 Hybrid Freezer

Arguably more exciting is the MSI Hybrid Freezer 9600 with its semi-passive fan that switches on when the GPU core temperature reaches 85˚C. It’s also a dual slot solution and features a few heatpipes thrown in there for good measure. It also features three phases using MSI’s DrMOS for the GPU and two normal power phases for the memory.

On the back, MSI includes every connector you’ll ever need – a pair of DVI, HDMI, Display Port (only two can be used at once), S/PDIF and a big red button that overclocks on the fly using MSI’s dual BIOS feature.


Overall, both Gigabyte and MSI make some alternative cooling solutions that are pretty innovative and could certainly attract those who are looking for something a lot quieter than the standard Nvidia offering. However, given the current market gap between Nvidia products, it could easily push the price up into the next (GeForce 8800 GT) segment - we've talked about this 'problem' with Nvidia's current product stack before...