Inno3D iChill 8600GTS XStriker3 Review - Page 1 of 6
By Steve Angelly - June 5, 2007
INTRODUCTION
These NVIDIA 8600 mainstream graphic cards have
been coming out of the woodwork lately. NVNEWS previewed a couple of NVIDIA 8600 GTS
cards at launch and just recently did a review on the MSI 8600GTS OC
Edition card
here. I have been
running the EVGA GeForce 8600 GTS SuperClocked that Mike previewed
here. I encourage you to refer
his preview for the listing of features for the 8600 GTS.
As far as pure speed, the 8600 GTS runs the bulk of DX9 games much like the 7900GT and a
little behind the 7900GS, which is surprising as I would have thought it would
have been ahead of both these cards. It picks up in Oblivion and starts to shine
in S.T.A.L.K.E.R., although resolution takes its toll the frame rate with all the
settings turned up.
Inno3d iChill 8600GTS XStriker3
Just what is the 8600 GTS? First off, it has a newly
designed 80nm core (G84) while the 8800 GTX (G80) has a 90nm core. Where the G80 has an
estimated 681 million transistors the G84 has only 289 million. Still, this
means that the 8600 GTS mainstream card has more transistors than Nvidia’s
previous high-end G71 graphics chip which has an estimated transistor count of
278 million.
The new 8600 core has been improved to
enable better shader performance per clock. Texture processors can now calculate
8 texture addresses per clock instead of the 4 that the 8800 GTX can
calculate, enabling the ability to sample more unique texture locations in the
memory. This newly designed processor includes
a new video processor as well as a BSP (bitstream processor) engine. With H.264
High Definition Video Processing, 8600 GPUs are able to take on the duties for
bitstream processing as well as the inverse transform in HD decoding. This can
free up significant CPU time while allowing the system to do more at one time with the
same processing power. While all this sounds very good, the downside is that the
G84 comes with 32 stream processors onboard. This is down significantly from the 128
stream processors of the G80. The memory interface on the G84 is 128-bit, which is down
from the 384-bit of the G80. Yes, the design has been improved, but there seems
to be significant performance gap between the 8600 GTS and the 8800 GTS, 320MB
card in the 8800-series. What is there to fill the gap?
iChill Technology
That brings me to what NVNEWS received in the mail today
from Inno3D. From half-way around the world we received their elite rendition of
the 8600 GTS, the iChill 8600GTS XStriker3. They have an up-front claim of air
boost technology, heatpipe technology, and a silent cooler with large airflow. This is
all wrapped up in one compact 8600 GTS package. Since I have been
working on a personal 'low budget', high-performance gaming rig, anything
concerning 'air cooling' gets my immediate attention. These cooling claims
certainly did it! I am eager to see what is so special about this Inno3d iChill 8600GTS XStriker3 card compared to the rest of the pack. I will have to
say it rates at least a NVNEWS 'Triple' just on the name title alone! So much
for the naming let's see what makes up the basis for these claims.
SPECIFICATIONS
Chipset - NVIDIA Geforce 8600 GTS
Memory - 256MB GDDR3
Core Frequency - 702MHz
Memory Frequency - 2100MHz
RAMDAC - 400MHZ
Interface - PCI-Express
Memory Bus - 128-bit
Max. Resolution - 2560 x 1600
SLI Ready - Yes
Stream Processors - 32
Output - #1. Dual-Link DVI #2. HDTV
Features Specific to
the Inno3D iChill
8600GTS XStriker3
1. Air Boost
Technology - this is based on Bernoulli's
Principle which states that during steady air pressure all air particles that
pass any given point follow the same path at the same speed. Hence increase and
decrease in the same velocity occurs simultaneously with air pressure or a
change in the airflow gravitational potential energy.
2. Heatpipe Technology - features copper base
heatpipes filled with liquid material that extend directly from the GPU centre
to provide heat conductivity and vaporizes heat transfer. The Aluminum fins are
specially designed to allow air flow pass through easily and remove heat
efficiently.
3. Silent Cooler with large Air Flow - features
combination of passive and active cooling solutions. The silent cooling fan
allows air circulation from the center and sides of the card and is built with
systematic noise reduction.
