Tyan Tachyon G9600Pro - Overclocking And Conclusion
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Tyan Tachyon G9600Pro
Overclocking
Of course we wouldn't let you get through the review without some overclocking action with the G9600Pro. We used the included software from Tyan to do the testing and it worked really well. Here is the speed at which the Tachyon comes clocked at out of the box.
400MHz Core and 600MHz Memory is pretty respectable for this type of card. Obviously we had high hopes to overclock the G9600Pro to obtain even more performance from this excellent video card. I used loops 3DMark01 SE running at 1600 x 1200 32bit color to test stability of the overclock. This worked well since when I clocked too high on the VPU core, I got total lockups of the program and windows. When overclocking the memory too high, I started to see artifacting throughout the benchmark process. Here is where we ended up at after quite a bit of testing.
Immediately you'll notice an extremely impressive VPU overclock of 130MHz which brings us to 530MHz core clock. A whopping 32%+ increase! This is the type of overclock you pray for when buying your video card. However, equally as unimpressive is the Memory overclock. We weren't able to overclock the memory hardly at all. 602MHz was as high as I could go without seeing any visual artifacts while running 3DMark. I could go much higher, up to 620MHz but severe artifacting would occur resulting in very garbled looking graphics. So while we were very happy with the Core overclock, we were certainly let down by the lack of overclocking for the memory on this card. Tyan states the memory is of the Hynix 3.6ns sort, and is shipped at 300MHz instead of 275Mhz. While I'm glad Tyan ships us a faster card, I'll have to say this is pretty much right on the edge. But hey, as long as it's stable, I'm happy. Still, there is certainly performance increases to be had with this gargantuan VPU overclock. Here is what type of increase we saw with 3DMark01SE.
Certainly a substantial increase in 3DMark performance. We're looking at about a 11% improvement here in overall score. Not bad at all. And I know for you benchmarking freaks out there, a 1,300+ point increase is great benefit.
Extra's
As a bonus, I decided to run some ATi R9700 and R9800 demo's just to see how well the Tachyon G9600Pro could hang. I was stunned when I fired up both the 9800 Gargoyle and Chimp demo's and the Tachyon handled them with ease. The 9700 Car Paint and Bear Demo's were flawless as well. Very impressive for a card of this variety and much lower price tag.
Radeon 9800 Demo's
Gargoyle
Chimp
Radeon 9700 Demo's
Bear
Car Paint
Once again I'm very impressed with the performance of this card. Pardon the mouse pointer in the pics. Also bear in mind all of these screenshots were taken with the Tachyon G9600Pro and it was not overclocked while doing so.
Conclusion
What can I say about the Tyan Tachyon G9600Pro other than I was extremely impressed? After recently testing both the GF FX5900 and ATi Radeon 9800 Pro, I really wasn't even ready to give the G9600Pro a second thought. But after days of benchmarking this card, and about 2 solid weeks of hardcore gaming including UT2k3, BF1942 and Star Wars Galaxies, I am not only very happy with the cards performance, I would easily recommend it to ANYONE looking to pickup a great video card for less than $200 US Currency. With adequate packaging, cables and software, great monitoring and overclocking tools, and an innovative cooling design, the Tachyon G9600Pro is the clear leader in it's class for video card performance. While in raw benchmarking performance, we don't see the type of numbers that the R9700 and R9800's are putting up, I uninstalled an R9700Pro from my gaming system before putting in the Tachyon G9600Pro. I honestly could not tell the difference in gaming performance whatsoever. Typically I like to run my games at a resolution of 1280 x 1024 with default settings and the G9600Pro did not see any slowdown or dropped frames. While you won't want to enable any hardcore FSAA at that resolution, those of you looking for great gaming at 1280 or less, and NOT looking to spend a car or house payment on a video card, the Tachyon G9600Pro should definitely be on your list.
Typically we don't give out too many awards for mid-range video cards like the Tyan Tachyon G9600Pro, but I enjoyed this card so much and was so thoroughly impressed with it's performance that I'm not even going to hesitate to give it an OCA Editor's Choice Award from yours truly. Ironically enough, I'm looking at my Radeon 9700Pro sitting on my desk, and I don't think I will replace the G9600Pro with it anytime soon.
Additionally, this card is surely getting my vote for Mid-Range video card of the year. So stay tuned and see what happens for OCA's Best and Worst of 2003.
We'd like to thank Tyan Computer Corporation for the chance to review this excellent video card. We'd also like to thank our readers for joining us here today for the Tyan Tachyon G9600Pro video card review. Want to discuss this review and others in the OCAddiction Forums? Looking to pick this card up at a great price? Checkout PriceGrabber for the best prices in town on the Tachyon G9600Pro.
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