Extras and software
The Tachyon G9600 Pro's massive cooling system and dual-DVI option already set it apart from the pack, but the card also comes with a unique hardware monitoring utility. This Windows program will monitor the card's core and memory temperatures, memory core voltage, and memory I/O voltage. The utility also lets users overclock the card's GPU and memory and adjust fan speeds between 3000 and 5400RPM.

Overclocking options galore

Fine tuning the fan speed

Tyan's hardware monitoring utility is also available with its Tachyon G9700 Pro, and it's quite a useful little application. Unfortunately, the software does have one glaring shortcoming: the memory overclocking slider only goes up to 630MHz DDR, which is just 30MHz higher than the card's default memory clock speed. The utility's GPU overclocking slider, however, scales far beyond 500MHz, which gives users plenty of options above the Radeon 9600 Pro's default core clock speed of 400MHz.

Perhaps the most useful element of Tyan's hardware monitoring utility is the level of control it gives users over the card's fan speeds. The card's fan must be set at a minimum speed of 3000RPM, but can be cranked up all the way to 5400RPM for more effective cooling. About all I could ask for in the fan speed department would be automatic fan speed control that would scale the fan speed according to the GPU's temperature, but that would be pushing it considering that few graphics cards offer such functionality. NVIDIA's GeForce FX line does support temperature monitoring, and the FX 5800 Ultra does throttle down fan speeds in 2D applications. However, you have to live with the Dustbuster in 3D applications, and no one wants that.

Completing the Tachyon G9600 Pro's bundle of extras is a full set of video cables and a DVI-to-VGA adapter. With the Tachyon G9600 Pro, it looks like Tyan is more interested in adding extras to the card itself rather than the bundle. Personally, I'd far rather have a more robust cooling system and hardware monitoring than a bundle filled with old games I've already played to death or long forgotten.