Overclocking
So how far will this little GPU go? Finding out was surprisingly easy using Palit's little overclocking tool. I just kept nudging the sliders upward until something went sideways and caused a Vista display driver crash in my 3D test app. Then I backed off a little bit and watched for visual artifacts. In the end, the 9600 GT was stable with a 810MHz GPU core and a 1.9GHz shader clock.

Turning up the memory clock didn't work out so well, though. Even going to 1050MHz produced immediate visual corruption and a system lock. I gave up and ran a few tests at my known-good overclocked speeds.

A little overclocking gives the 9600 GT enough of a boost to surpass the 8800 GT—just barely. I'm curious to see how much the more pedestrian 9600 GTs out there will overclock. I suspect Palit's spiffy cooler and three-phase power have given this card more headroom than most.