XFX 8600GT and 8600 GTS XXX Edition Video Cards

[Apoptosis]

Based on the GeForce 8800 series GPUs, the GeForce 8600 series finally brings DirectX 10 to the masses at mainstream price points. The Geforce 8600 GTS is the successor to the 7600 GT, which was one of the best value DirectX 9 graphics cards of 2006. Read on as we compare the XFX 8600 GT and 8600 GTS to dozens of other video cards to see how they perform against other great PCIe graphics cards.



This article features the largest charts that we have ever published for video cards! Cheers to Brian for all his hard work on the benchmarking and testing! The first five pages and pictures were taken and written by Apoptosis here on the forums and then the testing/charts/power numbers were written by BWall. We think we got out a lot of content for only having the cards for three days... Enjoy!

Article Title: XFX 8600GT and 8600 GTS XXX Edition Video Cards
Article URL: http://www.legitreviews.com/article/486/1/
DIGG URL: http://digg.com/hardware/XXX_Rated_vide ... aked_Truth

[Bwall]

Thanks Apop for all the help, it's much appreciated!

What do you guys think about these cards? As stated on the last page I don't feel that at the price these cards are shipping at that the 8600 GTS is a good value. The 8800 GTS 320MB is about $50 more expensive before mail-in-rebates and is nearly twice as fast as the 8600 GTS.

[KnightRid]

Wow thanx for this!! I was all excited about the GTS, but now after seeing this, I am not getting it!

I wish the 8800 320mb cards would have the purevideo stuff built in! It would make it an excellent card to secure at least a future for a media center pc!

Mike

Might stick with the 7600GT for a while in the dual core system - has a 5.1 WEI with 5.9 in graphics and 5.5 in gaming graphics!! All with only 256 mb of ram onboard

[Apoptosis]

Wow thanx for this!! I was all excited about the GTS, but now after seeing this, I am not getting it!

I wish the 8800 320mb cards would have the purevideo stuff built in! It would make it an excellent card to secure at least a future for a media center pc!

Mike

Might stick with the 7600GT for a while in the dual core system - has a 5.1 WEI with 5.9 in graphics and 5.5 in gaming graphics!! All with only 256 mb of ram onboard

The 8800 has the PureVideo technology built in, so it will free up ~20% of the CPU while doing HD video decoding... It's just not as CPU freeing as the PureVideo 2 engine.. A WEI of 5.1 on Vista isn't too shabby at all --- just will fall short when DX10 games come out ;)

[stopthekilling77]

wow cards are advancing pretty steadily every few months! now i have cards to recommend to some of my friends who dont need super high end GPUs

[DMB2000uk]

Seeing the new features introduced on the 8600's makes me wonder how long off the 8900's will be

Was also hoping for better performance, looks like I'll be sticking with my 7900GS till Crysis.

Dan

[Bwall]

Seeing the new features introduced on the 8600's makes me wonder how long off the 8900's will be

Was also hoping for better performance, looks like I'll be sticking with my 7900GS till Crysis.

Dan

This is exactly what I was hoping people would see but everyone needs to read the numbers and form their own opinion.

In games that are out on the market, which obviously are not DX 10, the cards don't offer anything that you haven't been able to get at the same price for several months now. Who knows what hardware we'll see from NVIDIA and ATI once DX 10 games are actually available! Rumor has it we're already on the verge of new high end hardware from NVIDIA.

[camaroguy1998]

I was hoping for and expecting better peformance than that.
Maybe I'll stick to my plan for an 8800GTX.

In recent months video has become more important to me, so this raises a question for me....

Apop's Quote.....
The 8800 has the PureVideo technology built in, so it will free up ~20% of the CPU while doing HD video decoding... It's just not as CPU freeing as the PureVideo 2 engine.. A WEI of 5.1 on Vista isn't too shabby at all --- just will fall short when DX10 games come out ;)

Is the PureVideo Engine a software or hardware based feature and is there a possibility that the PureVideo2 be available for the 8800's in the future?

Forgive my ignorance but, thats half the reason I'm here to find these things out!

[Apoptosis]

I was hoping for and expecting better peformance than that.
Maybe I'll stick to my plan for an 8800GTX.

In recent months video has become more important to me, so this raises a question for me....

Apop's Quote.....
The 8800 has the PureVideo technology built in, so it will free up ~20% of the CPU while doing HD video decoding... It's just not as CPU freeing as the PureVideo 2 engine.. A WEI of 5.1 on Vista isn't too shabby at all --- just will fall short when DX10 games come out ;)

Is the PureVideo Engine a software or hardware based feature and is there a possibility that the PureVideo2 be available for the 8800's in the future?

Forgive my ignorance but, thats half the reason I'm here to find these things out!

It's hardware based in the 8800 series... The GeForce 6/7 series had NVIDIA's PureVideo and the GeForce 8800 series had what was an improved technology that was known as NVIDIA's PureVideo HD... This is the second generation of PureVideo HD... While nvidia will not talk about upcoming products... It's highly likely that something like this might be on their upcoming GPU update on the 8800 series.

[brites]

8600 having DX10 suport is enough!!! not for me... If I go for Nvidia 8800 is a better choice...
For less the $$$ ATI and Nvidia have better choises

[camaroguy1998]

I was hoping for and expecting better peformance than that.
Maybe I'll stick to my plan for an 8800GTX.

In recent months video has become more important to me, so this raises a question for me....

Apop's Quote.....
The 8800 has the PureVideo technology built in, so it will free up ~20% of the CPU while doing HD video decoding... It's just not as CPU freeing as the PureVideo 2 engine.. A WEI of 5.1 on Vista isn't too shabby at all --- just will fall short when DX10 games come out ;)

Is the PureVideo Engine a software or hardware based feature and is there a possibility that the PureVideo2 be available for the 8800's in the future?

Forgive my ignorance but, thats half the reason I'm here to find these things out!

It's hardware based in the 8800 series... The GeForce 6/7 series had NVIDIA's PureVideo and the GeForce 8800 series had what was an improved technology that was known as NVIDIA's PureVideo HD... This is the second generation of PureVideo HD... While nvidia will not talk about upcoming products... It's highly likely that something like this might be on their upcoming GPU update on the 8800 series.

Thanx Apop, Thats what I thought just wanted to make sure!
That raises a cpl questions, when are the new 8800's going to be available?
Seems I read somewhere the other day saying some versions of the new cards are going to be VERY limited in quantity, do you know anything about that?

[Bwall]

The 8600 GTS is available now. The 8600 GT won't be available for a couple of weeks and the 8500 series is due around May 1st as well.

[stopthekilling77]

seems to me that the best is yet to come and whatever comes next to reign as the top Nvidia card is going to BEAST all the other cards before. it just seems to me that these cards should have performed better, but maybe its just a sign that Nvidia might clamp down on some of the speculation with their next mid-to-high end cards and show some real muscle.

that being said these are well-performing, versatile cards for anyone who isn't looking to spend a crapload of cash and still get good video support.

can't wait for the next big boy though... 8900s anyone?

[Toebot]

Well that is a major let down. What a POS. I guess they have to try and milk Vista/DX10 like everyone else. But I won't be helping them out, maybe at half the price... Naw, I'll get a cheap ATI and wait another year.

[Apoptosis]

Thanx Apop, Thats what I thought just wanted to make sure!
That raises a cpl questions, when are the new 8800's going to be available?
Seems I read somewhere the other day saying some versions of the new cards are going to be VERY limited in quantity, do you know anything about that?

Just like NVIDIA we can't comment on unreleased products... Once we get the green light we will let you know about what we do know...

Cheers

[DX]

Some day I'll be able to upgrade from my 6800GT but not today.

How about some SupCom benches?

[Tectonic]

I'll be building a new system for college graduation in a month, and there's no way I'll consider buying one of these 8600 cards with the 8800GTS approaching the 200 dollar mark.

Somewhere in the review something was said about an upcoming dx10 patch for one of the games. Historically, don't the new features added by a new directx version cause the game to run slower on enabled hardware rather than faster? :o

I wouldn't expect much out of dx10 on these cards.

[elkmanwsu]

I'm loving the variety nVidia is giving us these days. I will be wanting a new rig in fall and I really dont want to spend more than 300 bucks...but I suppose I'll have options for some pretty high end stuff.

[vicaphit]

Im kicking myself now... I didnt realize that the 8600 would run with my 300w PS... I could have waited half a month and paid an extra $20 bucks and gotten the 8600...boo

[geokilla]

Hey guys. I got this from another forum (Anandtech). It appears that on the XFX 8600GT boxes, if you look closely, you can see the words EVGA on the dog drool. WTF is wrong with XFX....Now I've lost respect for them, even though I never owned a card from them. EVGA is now known as dog drool according to XFX.

http://www.guru3d.com/newsitem.php?id=5218

Should we start a topic on this?? lol.