Gainward 8600GT 256MB HDMI
Author: Luka Rakamaric
Date: 02 Oct 2007

Gainward has always provided us with a few 'firsts' on the market each year. In relation to the 8600 series, they were the first to offer custom PCB designs, which were available immediately at launch. This time around they have introduced a passively cooled 8600GT with one extra characteristic, an HDMI port. Unlike ?normal? cards, this one features four connectors on the back panel. There is one DVI - I, one D-SUB and one HDMI connector. The fourth one is and SPDIF connector, which is there to route the audio signal to the HDMI connector. You will need to connect the SPDIF connector from your motherboard to the graphics card, in order to have audio throughput over the HDMI port.

The first problem arose due to the fact that our testbed motherboard (EVGA 680i SLI) has only optical SPDIF out, and connecting the two together is not so easy. Therefore we switched to our CrossFire testbed based around a DFI ICFX3200 T2R/G motherboard, which has a chinch SPDIF, like the Gainward?s card. The only thing left to do is to connect the two connectors with a supplied cable. Some other cards that had HDMI functionality (with a supplied DVI adapter) had an internal SPDIF cable, and that meant even fewer compatible motherboards.

The card itself is based around a G84-300 GPU, which features 32 unified shader units, and operates at 540 MHz. The Gainward card is clocked at stock speeds, meaning that the shaders within the GPU are operating at 1.19 GHz, and the memory is clocked at 700 MHz, or 1.4 GHz Double Data Rate effective. Since we have seen some massively overclocked 8600GT cards, which almost reached the frequencies of 8600GTS and its G84-400 GPU, Gainward?s card seems unimpressive, but its main advantage is the passive cooler and the HDMI connector, making it ideal for an HTPC that is also used for occasional gaming. The HDMI connector is capable of 1080p resolution, which is enough for any present plasma or LCD TV, or UXGA (1600x1200).

As with all our graphics cards, all benchmarks were run on the following testbed:

- Intel Core 2 Duo E6700
- EVGA 680i SLI (DFI ICFX3200T2R/G for HDMI because of cinch SPDIF, but no benchmarks were run on this motherboard)
- OCZ Vindicator CPU cooler - OCZ PC2-8000 Platinum XTC @ 800 MHz, 4-4-4-12
- PCP&C Turbo Cool 1KW SR
- Western Digital RaptorX 150 GB

Since the card features a passive cooler, we were very interested in the maximum temperature it would reach under load. Outside a case, but with no fans blowing directly at the fan?s ribs, the maximum temperature was 81 degrees, which is not all that bad, considering that every case has some airflow and that the temperatures inside would probably be a few degrees lower.

We ran two sets of benchmarks, one with 1680x1050 0xAA, 0xAF and the other with 1680x1050, 4xAA, 16xAF. Also, for the first time we used some DirectX10 benchmarks.

Under Windows XP Professional (DirectX 9.0c)

- Company of Heroes 1.70
- F.E.A.R. 1.08
- Far Cry 1.4
- Oblivion 1.2.0416
- Prey 1.3
- S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 1.003
- Supreme Commander 1.0.3223
- X3Demo

Under Windows Vista Ultimate (DirectX 10)

- Bioshock
- Company of Heroes 1.70
- Lost Planet: Extreme Condition
- World in Conflict