PNY GeForce 9 9500GT

Author's product rating:   

Speed	Fast
Stability	Stable
Ease of Installation	Excellent - very quick and easy
Picture Quality	Excellent
Value For Money	Excellent

Advantages:	Extensive connectivity options, faster rendering support, three years warranty .
Disadvantages:	Works much better with Window Vista .

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

BACKGROUND INFORMATION

PNY Technologies is one of the famous manufacturers of high quality graphics cards, various types of memory drives, different types of modules for memory upgrades. It is a private company founded on 1985 and headquartered in Parsippany, New Jersey, USA. It also has many branch offices in many Latin American countries, European Countries and some Asian countries. PNY manufactured products are very popular and well-received by both normal and professional consumers all over world. Excellent quality, superb after sales support and extended free warranty makes PNY products number one choice for PC users. PNY also provides high quality electronic chips and devices for mobile phones, digital cameras etc.

INTRODUCTION TO PNY GeForce 9 9500GT

GeForce is one of the most prominent brands for graphics processing units (GPU) it has several generations of high end graphics cards. GeForce nine series is the ninth generation of graphics cards and the first of product of this series was released on February, 2008. Just after five months, 9500 GT was officially released and available for customers. This product was unique for its high performance ability and extensive modern connectivity options.

When 9500 GT first released, it was considered as one of the high-end graphics card for users. But since then, technology has been improved and modified so much that, now it is considered as entry level graphics card. Still it has all the proper connectivity options which support all the latest technologies. So, it is not that bad option for a normal graphics card.

FEATURES

• It was fabricated on 65nm and supports directX 10. (Very fast rendering experience and better output).
• Have a better core clock speed of 550MHz and memory clock of 1 GB.
• A great memory bandwidth of 16 GB/s (more speed and faster response)
• Extensive connectivity options.
• Having a maximum resolution of 2500x1600.

COMPATIBILITY

• It requires Microsoft Windows 2000, XP or Vista as operating system. (I found that, it works better in Vista compare to XP. I tried both OS, and it tends to work better with Vista in my personal opinion)
• At least 512 MB of RAM(I personally recommend of 1 GB of ram, when I bought this one, I already have 2GB of ram in my desktop, so it was easy for me to enjoy the full feature of this graphics card.)
• It also requires a motherboard with PCI-E (Peripheral component Interconnect Express) compatible and a 16x slot.
• It also requires a minimum of 100 MB space in hard-disk to install and use this graphics properly in the system.
• An optical drive (a DVD-ROM drive) requires running the installer file.

Installation and User manual

It’s a basically plug-in card. You just need to plug in the graphics card into the 16x slot in your motherboard. Then run the installer file and customize the options according to your needs. You also get a very helpful user manual with clearer instructions. It will guide you how to install and run this graphics card in your system.

MY EXPERIENCE

I bought this graphics card for my desktop last year. I bought it from DELL website online. It was very easy to install and to use the features. It is a basic entry level graphics card with 512 MB installed as video memory. I was doing front-end programme for my engineering course. I found this card very useful and helped me to do works smoothly. I also played some decent games in my PC.

I think to enjoy the full feature of this graphics card; you need at least 1GB of ram in your system. Well as I mentioned before I already had 2GB ram in my system. Though, it says in the box that it will work with 512 ram. But in reality it cannot support the graphics card properly. You also need a better processor (minimum P4 presscott or higher).

I also find out that directx10 works only better in windows Vista and it is one of the primary features of this graphics card. So, I will recommend you to use Windows Vista as an operating system to enjoy the full features and advantages of this graphics card.

~Good Points~

• Supports PureVideo Technology (A dedicated hardware feature that allows the user to enjoy high quality display , smooth and clear picture with excellent and accurate colour-displaying ability for both images and videos)
• Very cheap and easy to install.
• Excellent after sales support and extended free three years warranty.
• It has very modernized and wide range of connectivity options(DVI, HDTV and also VGI)
• It also has Nvidia Quantum Effects Technology (Enables the user to enjoy a high render rate, and faster frame-rate to enjoy high quality visual effects.)

~Bad Points~

I found out that, it only works better with Windows Vista operating system. It also requires high RAM in your system to enjoy the features properly.

~After Sales Support ~

You can download your driver from PNY website. After going to the address I provided below, you will find three drop-down menu. First you select the “Consumer Graphics”, then GeForce 9 and then the products name PNY GeForce 9 9500GT. Then you can download the related files from their website.

Download Driver: http://www.pny-europe.com/support.php?section=download
Online Customer Support : http://www.pny-europe.com/support.php?section=assistance

AVAILABILITY

You can buy this graphics card from any high street electronics shop just under £50. But I will recommend you to buy from either DELL or Amazon.

Thank you very much for reading my review.

©Gladiator007

***This review also posted on Helium and Dooyoo under same user name***