Galaxy 9600GT Low Profile Low Power Review
Video Playback
NVIDIA’s PureVideo is a hardware feature designed to offload video decoding processes and video post-processing from the CPU to the GPU. NVIDIA’s device drivers for Windows XP and Windows Vista are PureVideo-enabled. With the appropriate (PureVideo-enabled) application software, the NVIDIA driver will automatically use whatever hardware-acceleration is available on the NVIDIA GPU. This functionality can help slower CPU’s to be able to play FullHD(1920×1080) content without causing any stuttering issues. The software that offer this functionality are WinDVD, PowerDVD, Arcsoft Total Media Theater which you would have to buy in order to use the acceleration. Free software such as Media Player Classic Home Cinema can also use GPU acceleration. As this card could be used for a HTPC-gaming rig, we decided to check out its FullHD video playback capabilities.
I used Media Player Classic Home Cinema for the playback. The video used was the trailer of movie “The International” available from Divx 7 HD showcase Webpage. This is a 12.3 Mbps 1920×816 video. Here’s the image with video info
This screens show the CPU Usage when played in Windows Media Player using ffdshow decoders.
This screen shows the same CPU Usage in Rivatuner’s Hardware Monitor
Now lets see the CPU usage when the GPU does the decoding. Same video, played in Media Player Classic Home Cinema using GPU decoding.
And this is the CPU usage in Rivatuner’s Hardware monitor. 
The difference is amazing, isn’t it? This feature can allow you to spend less money on a CPU while making a HTPC, because now you know that your GPU would be able to do most of the decoding, keeping the CPU free.
Hi. I think this is a great looking card. I would love to put in my machine (acer small form desktop, amd dual core, 4gb ddr2) But I worry about power load because my machine has a teeny tiny 220watt psu. I can’t and don’t want to upgrade because the psu is a proprietary acer form that I cant upgrade easily. It sucks.
What would I risk trying this card on my machine? How can I find out if this would be suitable for my situation? Thanks and great review!!
I think it should be fine
thanks!
Update:
Just got this card, put it in my small form Acer. It’s very snug and it gets really hot, but it seems to work fine. I drilled some extra holes in the case, but maybe I need some more. Right now it’s idling at 61 C after cooling off from a short time under load where it reached 80 C. I don’t know if this is normal or not. No crashes yet, but I guess I’ll continue to baby it a bit.
Thanks for this great article!
Update #2:
I’ve been using this card for a while with no problems, but recently it has been overheating.
The fan seems to come on and off, sound loud and strange, and generally run inconsistently. I’m not sure if there is a way for me to manually control the fan or if that would help.
Concerning GPU temperatures, sometimes, things are fine. The GPU temperature will stay at 50-60C while doing basic tasks, watching youtube videos, etc. No problem. Other times the temperature will rise to 90 C or more simply running Windows 7. Sometimes, with a load on the GPU, the temperature will rise to 125 C causing the card to shutdown. This will happen with loads from high resolution gaming or just youtube videos (not even fullscreen!). Then again other times, I can game for 45 minutes getting temperatures getting on up to 80 C with 75% fan speeds.
This is probably not the ideal place to post this, but since I posted here earlier, why not…
Mine did the same thing. The fan is buggered, noisy at first, then noticed when I had the lid off that when it wasn’t just noisy/vibrating but stalling and strugling to turn. I sent it back to supplier (you have to remove the heatsink held by tape to replace yourself thus voiding waranty) and 3months later I am about to get it back. Hope it does not do it again.
Oh and I used a manual controller as at high speeds it was quieter but in the end still faulty.