NVIDIA’s G80 GPU has recently taken on a more affordable form in the 8600-series and one of the first add-in board makers to release cards based on the 8600 was Gigabyte.

NVIDIA was able to strip down the G80 GPU by eliminating some of its shader processing units, a smaller memory bus which also means it takes a lot less power to run. In fact, this card takes so little power that there’s no need for an accessory power input on it – folks with smaller power supplies should certainly be excited about this. The resulting GPU is actually dubbed the NX86 GPU and has set a new benchmark for performance, power and features.

Feature-set wise, the 8600 supports all the DirectX 10 functionality that has made the 8800 so successful – all the games coming down the pike will be able to be played in their entire graphical splendor. In essence, what we have is a fully capable DX10-class GPU that’s clocked to 675MHz, that features a 128-bit memory bus, 256MB of GDDR3 RAM clocked at 2000MHz (1000MHz DDR), lower power requirements, and 32-shader processors and at a price to performance ratio that bests the current offerings out there.

A leading Taiwanese manufacturer, Gigabyte’s products have always represented good, solid performance and features at competitive prices.

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Article Index
Gigabyte GeForce 8600GTS Silentpipe III
A Closer Look
Specs and Test Setup
3Dmark06 and COH
F.E.A.R> and Stalker
SupCom and Conclusion