Overclocking results were beneficial and brought an 8-10% increase in performance at 1600x1200 with 2x AA. Both graphics cards reached speeds of 766MHz/1170MHz.
Overclocking Performance
TEMPERATURES
At a room temperature of 67° F (19° C), the EVGA e-GeForce 8600 GTS idled at 53° C and reached a peak temperature of 67° C running the Real-Time High Dynamic Range Image-Based Lighting demo. The fan speed was at its default setting of 42%. At 100% fan speed, the idle temperature dropped to 48° C and peak temperature to 64° C.
With its custom cooling solution the MSI NX8600GTS idled at 44° C and reached a peak temperature of 56° C under load.
CONCLUSION
Had the GeForce 8600 GTS been designed with a 256-bit memory interface, it would have become a competitor to the 320MB-variant of the GeForce 8800 GTS.
The higher GPU and memory clock speeds are beneficial in today's games - even on a 128-bit memory bus. But it would have been interesting to see how a 256-bit derivative of the GeForce 8600 GTS would have performed.
GeForce 8 Series Lineup
Although its 128-bit memory interface occasionally limits performance with 4x AA at a resolution of 1600x1200 and above, the GeForce 8600 GTS is an otherwise a solid DirectX 10 offering with HD playback capability.
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