NVIDIA's mainstream attack - 8600, 8500, 8400, 8300 - 8600GTS
Author: Luka Rakamaric
Date: 17 Apr 2007

The card is a successor to the very popular something-600 series. It started with the probably most successful NVIDIA card to date, the 6600GT, which offered amazing performance at moderate price, and was continued with 7600GT that was launched at CeBIT2006. A full year and a month later, the 8600GTS is here to continue the legacy. As we mentioned before, it uses a G84 core, clocked at 675 MHz, with stream processors working at 1.45 GHz. It has 256 MB of memory, but it is clocked at an amazing 1000 MHz, or 2000 MHz effective. Since this is a mainstream part, the bus width is ?only? 128 bits, which is a serious drop from 320 bits used in 8800GTS, which is directly above it in the product lineup. Because of that, the memory can do 32 GB/s, and that can be a bottleneck when using some of the advanced options. Still, we have to remember the market it was made for and the fact that this keeps the price low. The card features two dual link DVI-I outputs, and both are HDCP compatible. It also has a 7-pin analog video out port that supports S-Video, composite and component signals using a dongle. It is also the first card to support HDCP with dual link exits, which means you can use 30?? displays to play HDCP enabled content. Altough the NVIDIA reference design of the card doesn?t have an HDMI port, it can be implemented by NVIDIA?s partner manufacturers on selected models. The cooler on the GTS is single slot, and is moderately quiet. The total power consumption of a reference clocked card is 71W, but NVIDIA still used a PCI-E power connector to extend the theoretical power consumption for the GTS to 150W. If you plan to overclock, the cards consumption raises with the increased clock, and when you do a voltmod, it grows exponentially so a 150W limit is welcome.

We're really glad to have a custom-designed card with non-reference clocks on our testing bench at press time, as well - Gainward's 8600 GTS GS. This non-reference card is clocked at 725MHz for core and memory ticking at 2.2GHz. We found out at press time that XFX is preparing even crazier combination with 730MHz for core and 2.26GHz for the Stream Processors (XXX Edition, HDCP compatible, with Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter bundle), and a new 650i motherboard which will be rather "interesting", to say the least. EVGA also has a Superclocked version of the card with core ticking at 720MHz and Stream Processors working at 2.10GHz, as well. We'll make sure to check them out, soon.