OC3D Review: nVidia 8600 GTS & 8600 GT - XFX and Foxconn

[FarFarAway]

We take a hard look at the performance of the new 8600 cards. Two from XFX and one from Foxconn.

Have a read

 

[FragTek]

Nice roundup Kemp, good show.

:beerchug:

 

[ionicle]

looks cool, i just wish XFX had done the same with the GTS as the GT, the black PCB does look damn nice

 

[JN]

looks cool, i just wish XFX had done the same with the GTS as the GT, the black PCB does look damn nice

Agreed. And I'm quire fond of the DVI connectors too

 

[FarFarAway]

Agreed, it really makes the card feel a little bit more special.

However at a £100 price-point you can't complain about the 8600 GT

 

[ExtremeBlizzard]

Ye the Black does make it look good maybe in future they will make more cards that use different colours:rotfl: :rotfl:

 

[Toxcity]

Amazing review! Really good read!

They are very nice cards.. darn small!

 

[Rastalovich]

An XP driver bringing these capabilities is currently being developed by nVidia.

A certain teacher peering over my shoulder asks if this should read Vista ?

An excellent pov of the midrange cards imo, great point about the performance per $$$ too. Scope for self improvement varying too.

I can see me buying some of these for people, and to be fair based on the review I wouldn`t necessarilly buy the same card for all of them

 

[WC Annihilus]

Also included is full hardware decoding of H.264 video as well as VC-1 content. I could not test this in this review as I am using Windows XP Professional for the tests and not Vista. An XP driver bringing these capabilities is currently being developed by nVidia.

Nope Trust me, I went through this thing for about an hour

 

[Rastalovich]

Haha nice1, she won`t like that

EDIT: edited

 

[WC Annihilus]

For one thing, I think that should be he For another, he asked me to do so (well, look through it anyways)

 

[Rastalovich]

Meh I`m turning the lappy off, if she wants to post she can get her own freakin account!

 

[FarFarAway]

Yes thanks to WC who managed to take over an hour reading through and checking the review at 1AM this morning!! Honestly I like my sleep

No really cheers mate

Hope you guys liked the read

 

[TJS]

I don't know what ATI is doing but nVidia is about to eat into a big portion of their pie. If those prices equate to about $100 to $150 they really are good bang for the buck. That said, I myself wouldn't settle for less than a 8800GTS 320MB, seems like the best card out there for the money; 8600 cards do get a lot chopped off, so while the price is agreeable to the performance it may be a bit too little for a gamer to accept.

TJS

 

[ali_james]

Nice reviews there

The only thing I don't get is if they really are worth buying? Going from say a 6800gs card and up to 150quid to spend, is it worth going for a 7900ish or 8600gts or even a 8800gts?

I know theres going to be no difinative answer for that, as either card is a big step over my current one. Any thoughts?

Cheers

 

[WC Annihilus]

Yes thanks to WC who managed to take over an hour reading through and checking the review at 1AM this morning!! Honestly I like my sleep

No really cheers mate

Hope you guys liked the read

Haha, well you knew what you were getting into when you asked me

 

[FarFarAway]

Nice reviews there

The only thing I don't get is if they really are worth buying? Going from say a 6800gs card and up to 150quid to spend, is it worth going for a 7900ish or 8600gts or even a 8800gts?

I know theres going to be no difinative answer for that, as either card is a big step over my current one. Any thoughts?

Cheers

DX10 and similar performance to a 7900GT @ 100ish quid? Not too bad imo

 

[Rastalovich]

What I find interesting, pricewize, is that these cards are hitting the scene @.. well I`ve just had a quick look-see and u can get an MSI 8600 something for £90, up to an XFX XT £150.

Now each step-up in price seems to co-incide with a big of a clock step-up as standard to the cards, and around midway ~£120 - are cards that u could probably pur-chase and clock much better than the more expensive ones.

But - think again - EXPENSIVE, we`re only talking about £30.

It seems to me that market-wize they`re making these cards for a spread of purchasers that would like to say their card is `overclocked` (although straight out of the plastic, but it sounds good) ; overclockers who will buy a kinda midrange and do the rest themselves ; and of course the cheapest I can find section.

What supprizes me most tho is that on release the prices are as low as they are. AND u can see 8800s coming down... is a G90 based card that close ? or are they really trying to spank ATi ?

I`m sorry, but I only see 3 choices of card for machines I may build:

1) heavy gameplayer - 8800

2) likes games, plays quite a bit, nothing intense - on the net alot - 8600

3) desktop - cheapo or onboard tbh. but £90... 8600 over an 8500 ??

Havent even given ATi a thought ??!?

 

[youpla]

I bought the XFX 8600GTS standard version clocked at 675MHz and it is a big improvement for playing games in 1280x1024 compared to my previous 7800GT.

You can OC the XFX 8600GTS very easily at the same clock as the XXX version 730MHz and even push the GPU up to 775MHz (similar OC Kemp did to the XXX version in the review), thus you can save some bucks on the purchase.