XFX 8600GTS & 8600GT XXX Editions!

[Kougar]

Reviewer: Robert "Kougar" Tanner

Date Published: April 18, 2007

Excerpt: "XFX decided the stock 675mhz core, 1,450mhz shader, and 1,000mhz (Remember that is 2,000mhz effective) memory was to simply far to paltry and is launching their “XXX” Edition 8600GTS with factory overclocks of 730mhz on the core, 1566mhz shaders, and a whopping 1,130mhz (2,260mhz effective) memory clockspeed!"


http://www.bjorn3d.com/Material/revimages/video/XFX_8600GTS_XXX/IMG_2824b.jpg

Please feel free to post your comments, questions, or suggestions here!

Link To Review (http://www.bjorn3d.com/read.php?cID=1086)

[sushrukh]

:ahhhhh: :grin: That box looks simply superb & the specs are too.Great review & illustrations Kougs.Hmmm 7950GT is still way better than even the highly OC'ed 8600GTS in all the game tests.COH is really memory intensive, so 7950GT has dared to challenge even the 8800GTS.

[Scott Sherman]

Will have to see DX 10 apps to make the midrange cards shine.

[Kougar]

I gotta agree with Scott, these cards may improve a good deal with DX10 under Vista.

Even so however, 512mb is really becoming the standard mem size needed in high performance video cards these days. Here's Quake4 set to "ULTRA" mode, the memory size on the 7950GT actually gave it a win here against a 8800GTS 320mb.

http://www.bjorn3d.com/Material/revimages/video/FV-N88SMCD2-ONOC/q4.png

[PP Mguire]

Yeaa!! Go my card from Bjorn!!! You guys are teh pwn seriously. I want to see DX10 benchies soon. Anybody know when U3, Halo2, and Alan Wake is gonna come out?

[liqnit]

Great review!
The benchmark are great and very detailed.
I would love to see how the do in SLI .

[Kougar]

Thanks Liqnit! :)

To try SLI I would have to use both a 8600GT and 8600GTS on a 975X Crossfire board with hacked drivers... the cards are similar except for clockspeeds, but I don't think it would work to well.

The issue is, for $260 anyone can by a 8800GTS, which will offer 2-3x the performance of the best 8600GTS you can currently buy. For two 8600 cards you can buy that 8800GTS... SLI has honestly never made the least sense as it does right now, unfortunately. There is absolutely no reason for it, especially since no one has an "old" 8600 laying around... SLI will never offer a full "2x" the performance, it can only sometimes come close.

It is a shame I don't have a basic reference 8600GTS to compare these cards with, I am sure these XFX "XXX" cards will totally pwn everyone else's right now... although $239 for the GTS model still does not make any realistic sense.

[liqnit]

You completely correct i wasn't thinking about the price.
The card has to be ~120$ to make a logical SLI in price terms.
Maybe the 8500 will do

[Kougar]

Two 8500GTs would cost about $99 each. The issue is these cards are HALF of an 8600, they only have a meager 16 shaders on them to perform everything. I am honestly not even sure if two 8500GT's in SLI will beat a single 8600GT!!

[liqnit]

yep they pretty weak!
so no cheap SLI...

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[sushrukh]

Just got XFX 8600GT XXX myself, since it is really cheap ($168 CDN) and the box clearly says that it is indeed HDCP capable. I don't have Vista, etc to verify this.

Nice man.Enjoy the new card & welcome to the Bj3D.

[raidersforever01]

Nice i would like to pick up an 8600 sometime in the near future. probably just get a gts because the gt xxx is very close in price to the gts.

[Unregistered]

Hi, im from South Africa, and im DYING here! lol

my problem is, i cant choose between the XFX 8600gts xxx, or the 8800gts (about U.S. $80-$100) difference.

I dont really have that extra money. So, do i: wait and have no card for maybe 2 weeks....OR buy the 8600gts now?

I play all my games at 1024x768. would i for example, be able to play stalker at MAX graphics with the 8600gts xxx? and with a 450W PSU, is it even feasible to get a 8800gts?

lol sorry for all the questions, and wow, what a review! n1

[Kougar]

Hi there! Sorry I missed your reply until now... while the 8600GTS XXX Edition is a respectable card now that the drivers are better tuned you would still see a 2-3x performance increase from going with the 8800GTS.

Since you said you dont yet have the extra money, you might consider saving up until Nvidia launches G92 this November... while the 9800GTS is reported to come in at $399 USD you may find it to be a worthy expense. Either way it is good to be aware that the G80 series will be replaced at that time.

[Schwarz]

I would certainly get the 8800GTS my friend.
Like you said you had to wait 2 weeks.
Waiting 2 weeks for a 8800 is worth it I tell you :p

[Unregistered]

I've read on many reviews that the fan on both the 8600gt and the 8600gts are screaming loud (just made a build w/ 8600gt as well). Only difference is that when the new drivers are installed for the 8600gt, no change... no throttling, still louder than all the fans in a system combined. Please update your review, or supply some sort of reason as to why you did not have this problem...

[Kougar]

Howdy, thanks for your comment/question.

As stated in the review the XFX 8600GTS uses its drivers to regulate its fan speed. The 8600GT model uses a different fan setup and stayed mostly quiet on its own. Not all manufacturers use the same fans and the same fan control schemes, so I can't speak for them. However with these XFX cards once Windows had loaded both of these cards were fairly quiet, and wouldn't be heard during extended gaming sessions. I currently have the 8600GTS in use, and the latest Nvidia drivers still work correctly with its self-regulated fan control.

I should note that the 8600GTS requires the installed driver to regulate it's own fan though, and therefore will be the usual leafblower when in DOS or the BIOS screens

[Xantor]

Isn't there some way of controlling the fan speed if you wanted? Like via speedfan or rivatuner? It might help you reduce noise...

[Kougar]

Rivatuner should work for the 8600GT, but I did not notice any difference when checking the 8600GTS which uses a different 3-pin fan setup. I don't believe Speedfan has yet implemented GPU fan controls... but ATI Tool has and works on many Nvidia cards as well.