NVIDIA GeForce 9600M GS

The Nvidia GeForce 9600M GS is a DirectX 10 graphics card for notebooks. Technically itis a slower clocked GeForce 9600M GT. It is also produced in 65nm and features a new PureVideo HD video processor (VP3) and HybridPower support.

Compared to the 8600M GT, the core clock is only slightly higher, which leads a similarperformance as the old 8600M GT, but because of the 55nm process it shoulduse less current. As the 8600M GT, the 9600M GT features 32 stream processors that do the graphic work of the vertex- and pixel-shaders.

In conjunction with the Nvidia 9100M G integrated graphics, the 9600M GS supports Hybrid-SLI (only HybridPower). HybridPower is a technique to choose between the integrated and dedicated graphics core, if performance or battery runtime is needed. This works only in Windows Vista. Up to now the user has to use a tool to switch between the GPUs. Later Nvidia wants to switch automatically in the drivers. GeForceBoost is not supported with this card, as there would be no performance gain.

Compared to desktop graphics cards, the 9600M GS is similar to the GeForce 9500 GS (which also descends from the G96 core). The similar named desktop CPU 9600 Series has a 256 bit memory bus and is therefore much faster.