8600GT or GTS?

I play at 1024x768 and i'm buying this from circuitcity (i have my reasons) but will a 8600GT be enough to run Supreme Commander,Medieval 2 and Age of Empires 3 with Maximum Settings or should i spend more and get the 8600GTS.

neither, get a decent card instead.

i meant a 1950pro or XT.

Depends on what you want as far as performance, there will be a difference between the 8600GTS and 8600GT except at very high resolutions then they both start to have troubles with demanding games:

http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/0 [...] page7.html

Totally agree with StrangeStranger.
Something like the X1950XT would be a better buy.
Time for a

Why do you want something that is DX10?

people like you don't deserve help, seriously.

you are talking about a severly crippled mid range card of a range that is unproven in DX10 and you think you are going to see ANY of the "eye candy" with that card. get real.

the reason you do not deserve any help is because of your ignorance and lack of common sense. stupid people should get stupid answers.

Okay if the 8600's really suck i won't get one,but can a 7600GT get playable FPS and decent settings in the games i mentioned?

And if you want to stay a bit more on the cheap, here's a good deal on an X1950pro...

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6814102061

Kaotao was just pointing out examples. He didn't say you had to buy it online.

Your money would be much better spent online through newegg, than through Circuit City. Do you have a gift card or store credit?

seriously buy online. Unless you have some amazing deals using employee pricing then Circuit City is just not worth it. Go to www.newegg.com otherwise because their prices are very, very good compared to retail store other than Fry's.

Alright, you will seriously regret buying an 8600GTS or Gt if you buy one now. Using Direct X9 games as a baseline for how well the 8600 series performs you can probably take an educated guess that neither card will have the power to utilize Direct X10. Even if Direct X10 is optimized and most hardware level cards are now unified shaders, you need to remember your going to still need some serious power to actually get decent framerates. I own a 7600GT but I will be upgrading.

The 8600GTS is severely crippled, I would either go with an X1950 Pro or X1950XT because they are some of the best bang for the buck cards out their today. If not, save money and get an 8800GTS. Vista and DirectX10 wont be required until about 2-3 years from now, but until they buying an 8600GTS for Direct X10 performance is like putting the cart before the horse, you just don't do it.

If you go to several websites and look at the reviews, they will show you that the general informed opinion of the 8600 series is a major flop. Websites like Guru3D even say that the leap from a 7600GT to a 8600 was worse. They even recommended people with a 7900GS or 7600GT to hold on until something better comes out. Nvidia knows that the 8600 series is a flop and I hope they go back and make some serious changed to the card.

Moving onto buying online, if you were to go to a website like Newegg, Tigerdirect, Amazon, etc. You would be getting a lot better variety and be able to save some money in the long run. Even save yourself a lot of heartache if you were to go with Newegg, they have an excellent customer service. But if you really want to throw money down the drain for a APOC hardware that is seriously crippled go ahead, but we are advising you not to.

7900GS doesnt pwn the 8600's its just better priced. I would even be hard pressed to say the 7900GS can even beat the 8600GT. Here is the biggest GPU benchmark review I can find with both the 8600's and the 7900GS.
http://www.computerbase.de/artikel [...] 8600_gt/1/

Well, you won't get ripped off or scammed by newegg, but I can pretty much guarantee that you'll get ripped off by Circuit City. For less than $200 you can't get a better buy than this X1950XT...

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6814102067

The eye candy obviously,but i'm not getting vista until the problems are fixed but i don't want to have to upgrade from a dx 9 card to a dx 10 card,it'll save me some trouble in the long run.
In all honesty, you won't get enough performance out of an 8600 to enjoy any 'eye candy' that DX10 might provide. A solid DX9 for the same price will far exceed the capabilities of an 8600 for the games you want to play now, and when DX10 games come out, sell it and upgrade to an 8800 or higher.
This isn't always the case. 8600GT gets about +30% performs over 7600gt in supreme commander according to one set of bench marks i seen.
I just bought an 8600GT and i'm happy with it. Fan is silent, video playback of movies seems better than the older cards too.
Supreme commander got tried on my new PC and did rather well, all setting on max except err, shadows? Mind you that at 1280X1024.
I do think the card will not run the high end games that are about to come out well though but i think it will do ok to run them at lower resolutions and with less detail. I think alot of the games that will be coming out will have settings for the lowerend cards and will be playable in DX10 and this is where i think it will become a value for money card at least it will be able to run then, not well but ok.
You've got your price points mixed up.
Cheapest 8600GT on NewEgg: $125
For $130, you can get an X1950Pro, an X1950GT or a 7900GS, all of which will easily beat an 8600GT. Also, my initial point, an 8600GT won't perform well enough in DX10 games to be able to 'enjoy' the eye candy. It'll be like buying an X1300 for Oblivion so you can use HDR and AA together.

If you buy from a reputable merchant, that won't happen. If you buy from NewEgg, I can guarantee that won't happen.I don't know why you keep on trying to get me to buy online,when some people like me have their reasons why they won't/can't buy online.

You may consider be biased but i NEVER had ANY problems with circuitcity,enough said.

Ok the real question is how much are you willing to pay buying it from retail ? They do have a 8800GTS EVga OC for $320 with a 20$ rebate so only costing you $300 which is the same price as evga website (MSR). So Post what is the most you can spend on the card too.

Hey man, you asked for help. You may not have has any "problems" with Circuit City, but apart from the occasional deal, you're going to get ripped off. Like Mr. Enforcer said, many of us use newegg and haven't had any problems, and I wouldn't recomend them if I had. If you want to spend a lot more than you have to, that's your business, but for the price I can't recomend anything from there.