The GeForce 8600 GT is the brainchild of Nvidia, the largest manufacturer of computer components. Historically, this company throughout its existence has only one competitor - AMD (whose video cards were previously produced by ATI).
In this article, we will consider this video card in terms of characteristics, comparison with competitors and performance in tests and games.
Graphics card history
In 2007, a series of video cards from Nvidia appeared - the GeForce 8600. GT, GTS, GTX - this video card has such modifications.
The video card is a budget version of the iconic and iconic motherboard - the GeForce 8800. In the conditions of fierce competition with AMD at that time, Nvidia released new video cards almost every month.
In 2007, the first video cards with support for DiretX10 were just beginning to appear. The company decided to take advantage of this situation and release the first budget video card supporting this software. And it turned out quite successfully. The board was created for those who could not afford the most powerful and productive 8800, but wanted to see all the beauty of a graphic breakthrough with DirectX10 on their computer for little money. However, one low cost does not achieve such high sales. So what is the popularity of the video chip? Let's move on to the analysis of technical specifications.
GeForce 8600 GT: specifications
The entire 8600 series is based on the G84 GPU, which operates at frequencies up to 540 MHz. The video card was sold with two memory volumes: 256 MB and 512 MB. Both options were based on DDR3 technology. The board operates at a frequency of 1400 MHz with a maximum resolution of 2560 by 1600 pixels. Like the top-end graphics cards from Nvidia, this one supports SLI mode for up to three boards at the same time.
To connect iron, you need a PCI Express x16 slot and a minimum of 512 MB of RAM on board the computer. Also, to use all the features offered, the user had to install the Windows Vista operating system. This was done because DirectX10 support was only in the new OS from Microsoft. Those who were not satisfied with Vista could easily remain on XP and use the capabilities of DirectX9 only. The required power supply is not weaker than 350 watts. Of the interfaces and connectors, the GeFore 8600 GT offers two DVI sockets and a TV-Out.
The standard version of the video card includes: the video card itself, DVI-VGA adapters, a CD with documentation, drivers, instructions and other additional software, a warranty. At the time of release, the video card cost from 130 to 160 dollars, which allowed even owners of weak or medium computer configurations to get it without any problems .
Externally, the video card does not look like powerful and productive. An ordinary motherboard with a small cooling system in the form of a cooler - the budget model affects everything. Consider the results of video card tests.
Performance tests
The GeForce 8600 GT currently does not make sense to test on modern systems and computer games. Therefore, we will take test programs and games of 2007 (year of release of this video card).
Testing was carried out at the following stand: Core 2 Duo 3 GHz processor, 2 GB of RAM and Windows Vista on a 320 GB hard drive. 3D Mark 2006 showed that versions with 512 MB and 256 MB of video memory are practically no different in terms of performance.
Let's move on to the two games that were taken for the test: Bioshock and Medal of Honor Airborne. Both projects came out just in 2007. The GeForce 8600 GT feels confident only with medium settings. At high and ultra FPS can draw up to 20 frames per second, which is almost unplayable. It is worth paying attention to the fact that these two games are perfectly optimized. This means that the video card can prove to be much worse in less stable games. In a word - a budget class.
Total
Of course, buying this video card in 2007, everyone was aware that it was just an imitation of DirectX10 support. For the full return on iron, it was necessary to acquire 8800 series. However, for those to whom modern games were not so important, this video card came up just right.