6 Graphics Cards with Luxury Trimmings

Colorful Geforce 8600 GT HD

The small 55 mm fan is audible, but not noisy, at 41.4 dB(A).

The review sample we received from Colorful runs at higher than standard clock speeds out of the box. While normal Geforce 8600 GT cards operate at 540 MHz (GPU), 1180 MHz (shader) and 700 MHz (memory), Colorful's card was clocked at 580/1276/800 MHz. Thanks to this tweak, Colorful's 8600 GT, with a cumulative frame rate of 975 fps, is practically tied with the Radeon HD 2600 XT (977.8 fps). This enables the 8600 GT to grab the top spot in the value for money ranking.

Colorful and MSI are the only companies to integrate an HDMI connector right on the board. All ATI cards tested here ship with a DVI-HDMI adapter to ensure compatibility with HD video content, including audio signals. Our Geforce 8600 GT sample from Colorful also shipped with this adapter, while an HDMI cable was sadly absent from the box.

We were unable to find a complete list of the equipment that is meant to come with this card on Colorful's website at tec.colorful.cn. Also, the clock speeds given on the website differ from those used by our sample. Additionally, the product photographs showed a card that used a different cooler and fan than our review sample. The images used by retailers are either taken directly from Colorful's site (and thus don't match our sample) or are completely absent. If you want to buy the exact model we tested here, you should check with your retailer, and ask for specific information regarding the bundle and the card's clock speeds.

The high cooler has the Geforce chip's temperature well under control. In 2D mode, the card reaches 45°C, and it hits 54°C under 3D load.

Here, the HDMI logo means an on-board HDMI port

Although the card doesn't come with an HDMI cable, a DVI HDMI adapter is included.

The backplane features one DVI and one HDMI connector, as well as a video port.

The card is a dual-slot solution due to the cooler's height.