| Article Index |
|---|
| Gainward GeForce 8600GTS 512MB VGA Card Review |
| Page 2 - Performance |
| Page 3 - 3DMark06 |
| Page 5 - Prey |
| Page 6 - Lost Planet (DirectX10) |
| Page 7 - Conclusion |
| All Pages |
With a massive boost of both memory and clock speed over the standard 8600GT, the
8600GTS should provide excellent performance for a minimal price, we put it to the test.
The GeForce 8600GTS from nVidia is their new video card entrant to tackle the mid range market, with prices starting at around AU$235 for a 256MB version, and around $285 for a 512MB version from some of the cheaper brands on the market. The Gainward card we have here today is a 512MB version and sells online for around AU$305, or to put it another way, about 50% more expensive than a 512MB version of a normal 8600GT which runs around AU$200.
The technology used in the 8600GT and GTS is essentially the same, except the 8600GTS runs at significantly higher clock speeds than the GT, with a core clock speed of 675Mhz as standard, making it the fastest core speed in the entire GeForce 8000 series, including the 8800Ultra. Don’t start thinking this means it’s the best performer in the group and you’ve found the world’s best bargain, because the 8600GTS is still choked by a 128-Bit memory interface and 32 stream processors which severely limit its throughput capacity, despite its high clock speed.
Below we have a table indicating the specs of the nVidia GeForce 8000 series.
| GeForce 8800 Ultra | GeForce 8800 GTX | GeForce 8800 GTS | GeForce 8600 GTS | GeForce 8600 GT | GeForce 8500 GT | GeForce 8400 GS | |
| Stream Processors | 128 | 128 | 96 | 32 | 32 | 16 | 16 |
| Core Clock (MHz) | 612 | 575 | 500 | 675 | 540 | 450 | 450 |
| Shader Clock (MHz) | 1500 | 1350 | 1200 | 1450 | 1190 | 900 | 900 |
| Memory Clock (MHz) | 1080 | 900 | 800 | 1000 | 700 | 400 | 400 |
| Memory Amount | 768MB | 768MB | 640MB or 320MB | 256MB or512MB | 256MB or 512MB | 256MB or 512MB | 256MB |
| Memory Interface | 384-bit | 384-bit | 320-bit | 128-bit | 128-bit | 128-bit | 64-bit |
| Memory Bandwidth (GB/sec) | 103.7 | 86.4 | 64 | 32 | 22.4 | 12.8 | 6.4 |
| Texture Fill Rate (billion/sec) | 39.2 | 36.8 | 24 | 10.8 | 8.64 | 3.6 | 3.6 |
As you can see from the table above, the memory clock speed has also been ramped right up, with a 1000MHz memory clock speed for the 8600GTS’s DDR3 memory. This speed increase gives the GTS a significant boost in memory bandwidth over the 8600GT, coming up to 32GB/s.
So everything is better and faster with the 8600GTS, but deep down it seems to be nothing more than an overclocked 8600GT, as there are no real improvements besides clocks speeds, no extra stream processors and no wider memory interface. Later in this review we’re going to see what type of performance increase you get for your money, but first we take a look at the card we’ll be using for those tests and the focus of this review; the Gainward Bliss 8600GTS.
At first glance the Gainward 8600GTS looks very impressive, with a dual-slot design and an apparently huge cooling system, however look closer and you see a very mediocre fan/heatsink system under some very large and largely useless metal mesh framework, and while the backing plate for the card has ventilation holes, there is nothing in the design of the cooling system to actually direct air through those holes and out of the computer case to help keep hot air out of your system. Instead, hot air is dispersed throughout your system, if they made the card this big surely they could have made the size serve some sort of practical purpose.
On the back of the card there are some very slim heat sinks installed on the memory chips, while the memory chips on the main side of the card have no heatsink at all, and rely solely on the airflow from the main GPU fan to keep them cool and stable, this is unlikely to stand up to much punishment in the way of overclocking.
Like other 8600 series video cards, the Gainward 8600GTS is SLI compatible, but unlike 8600GT series cards the GTS requires the PCI-Express 6-Pin power connector and a minimum 400W PSU, which thankfully shouldn’t be much of any issue with any reasonably current PC.
As far as connectors go, the Gainward Bliss GeForce 8600GTS comes with two Dual-Link DVI-I connectors which support HDCP and also comes with a DVI to VGA connector for each port. TV-Out is also included with support for S-Video, Composite and HDTV, all via a single breakout cable.
This card could have easily been made to fit into a single slot and save some room inside your case. However if you want your computer to look like you have 8800 series cards instead of 8600 series, than perhaps this is the one for you, but it’s only going to look that way at a quick glance due to the unnecessary large stature of the Gainward card. I’m much more a fan of function over form when it comes to hardware, make it faster/cheaper instead of looking funky, but maybe that’s just me.
Next we see how the Gainward 8600GTS performs...
