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Albatron GeForce 8600 GT 256MB
Introduction
The 8600-series, as well as the 8500s, are cut-down versions of NVIDIA's best video cards. They use the same DX10 architectural approach, having unified stream processors instead of dedicated pixel and vertex shading units, full support of HDR effects, and really for the first time ever, good video acceleration hardware. Currently, there's no hardware that's comparable, outside of NVIDIA's other new mainstream cards. ATI is lagging behind, though they're promising to deliver some serious competition in an amount of time that can reasonably be counted in days. The 8600 GT performance is a little under par with the 7900 GS and the X1950 PRO, which can currently be bought for about the same price. This puts the card in a tight spot. History tells us that when a new generation of video cards is launched, that the cards in the current mid-range need to outperform their older enthusiast hardware competitors, and that's just not the case here. That forces the 8600 GT to use its feature set as the ace-in-the-hole. This area is a lot more important than it used to be, though. Silent cooling, HDMI or at least HDCP compliance, good overclocking, even a well-chosen game tossed in can tip the scales in favor of the series, because the features the 8-series video cards all bring to the table are stellar. Where the card wins hands-down over the previous generation is power consumption. As stated, while the previous generation of hardware can and does outperform this mainstream hardware, it does so with more heat, more transistors, and a lot more power drawn. The 8600 GT tops out at 43 watts under a full load, something like 1/3 of what the older cards need. Today we have for review an Albatron 8600 GT from Albatron. This is a standard (as opposed to overclocked) version of NVIDIA's 8600 GT. Will it please the hordes of eager gamers looking for an affordable card? We shall see. Note: We are currently testing competing midrange cards, and will be posting their results and how they compare to the Albatron 8600 GT soon. Currently, the closest card we can compare to is the 8800 GTS.
Page 1: Introduction
Page 2: The Card, Bundle & Test Setup Page 3: Testing - Half-Life 2: Episode 1 Page 4: Testing - F.E.A.R. Page 5: Testing - The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Page 6: Testing - Company of Heroes Page 7: Testing - Prey Page 8: Testing - Need For Speed: Most Wanted Page 9: Testing - Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory Page 10: Testing - 3DMark '06 Page 11: Performance Summary & Overclocking Page 12: Conclusion
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