Holiday Buyer's Guide 2007 Part 4

XFX GeForce 8600GT XXX Edition PVT84JUDD3

By Ed Tittel

In a world where a new crop of slimmed-down, beefed-up 8800 cards is available, and where ATI now offers a new line of 38xx GPUs and cards, is there still room for a $130 8600 GT graphics adapter? Sure there is! As one of a sizable gaggle of overclocked 8600 GT cards available at very reasonable prices, this card is a great choice for anyone seeking to upgrade a Windows XP system to Vista, or who wants to acquire DX10 technology without spending $200 and up. The 8600 GT can handle all but the most demanding games with aplomb, upping the Vista Experience gaming graphics index to respectable values in the 5.2 to 5.5 range (by comparison, a top-of-the line 8800 earns 5.9 on this metric).

The XFX 8600 GT delivers decent graphics at a modest price

With 256 MB of DDR2 DRAM and a 128-bit memory interface, this XFX 8600GT moves data from PC to screen with reasonable facility. The card clocks at 620 MHz, 80 MHz above the standard 8600 rate. The shader clock runs at 1355 MHz, and the memory clock at 1.6 GHz, all in keeping with its higher-than-standard timing and performance. This card also support anti-aliasing levels up to 16x, and a dual DVI output lets this card to drive large LCD displays at resolutions up to 2560x1600.

The card runs in SLI mode where doubling up may be warranted (though new generations of graphics cards almost invariably outperform SLI pairs from previous generations). The real advantage to the 8600 cards, of course, is that their GPU offloads 100% of the effort involved in processing H.264 decodes. This is a great boon for HD content handling and performance, especially on XP PCs in need of a graphics boost to ready them for a Vista upgrade. Improved decoding boost handling for video formats such as MPEG-2 and VC-1 as well. In short, an 8600 can give just about any PC a shot in its video arm.

Those shopping for system builders working on mid-range Vista systems, or for upgrade parts to prepare older XP systems for Vista, will find this XFX 8600GT card makes a worthwhile and well-received Christmas gift. At prices under $130, it won't make Santa sigh as he or she reaches for the credit card, either. For more information on the XFX 8600GT PVT84JUDD3.

  • trainer051
    XFX Warranty deos not exist here why:

    dead

    Hi, thanks for your message,can you provide more details of the problems you are experiencing.regards Jedy

    no video running on asus motherboard with 4gb ram and win7

    Hi , thanks for your message. would it be possible to try the card in another system just to double check that it is the VGA card that is broken, please update us, regards Jedy

    It has been tried in two other system and result were the same. THIS VIDEO CARD IS DEAD - NOT WOPRKING

    Hi, sorry to hear the card does appears at fault here. Please contact your supplier for more details. thanks Jedy

    After a long waiting, XFX is not honoring their responsibility for warranty. That is very bad. The retailer is no longer in business.

    Hi,Thanks for the update. please note that warranty is only officially with the reseller. We provide support for XFX products up to 2 yrs from the date of manufacturer, including a courtesy RMA service where it is difficult for people to obtain RMA service from the reseller, but please note that as your product was manufactured well over 2 yrs ago, I`m sorry we cannot help here. Best Regards.Jedy
    Reply