Turbo buttons on the PCs went extinct after the 386/486-era. But now, according to TweakTown it appears that MSI will be trying to resurrect it for the button happy crowd with the MSI GeForce N9600 GT Diamond graphics card.
After some reconstructive surgery, MSI turned the sleek single-slot reference design of the GeForce 9600 GT into a honking dual-slot port-happy behemoth featuring an unmarked red button. The button located along side the plethora of output ports will allow users to overclock the GPU core, memory clock speeds, and increase the voltages.
However, MSI indicated that the turbo button currently does not support SLI mode. Meaning when two of these 9600 GTs are paired up, the shiny turbo button will be there for aesthetic reasons only — bummer. However, as with all new technology, MSI is continuing to improve support, and expects SLI support in the near future. MSI did not reveal however, that a SLI-compatible turbo button will be available by a simple firmware upgrade.
Details on clock speeds were not revealed, but the card will feature 2GB of GDDR3 memory, dual DVI, HDMI, DisplayPort, SPDIF, and of course the turbo button. Enthusiasts nostalgic of the good-old days of turbo buttons can expect to pick up their GeForce N9600 GT by the end of June with an expected street price of $250 to $300. Reference 9600 GTs can be found at the rock bottom price of $99 during sales. A quick glance at Newegg puts the average price to be around $150. Quite a price premium for a turbo button that only works half the time. Only time will tell if turbo buttons will go the way of the Dodo again.
