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NVIDIA GeForce 8600 GTS: The Full Review!

By Vincent Chang - 7 Apr 2007

Test Setup

Test Setup

Our usual graphics test system was used to benchmark the GeForce 8600 GTS . Consisting of an Intel Core 2 Duo E6700 (2.66Ghz) matched with an Intel D975XBX 'Bad Axe' motherboard, this high-end system had up to 2GB of DDR2-800 Kingston HyperX memory modules running in dual channel mode. A Seagate 7200.7 SATA 80GB hard drive completed the setup, installed with Windows XP Professional updated with Service Pack 2 and DirectX 9.0c.

We tested the GeForce 8600 GTS using ForceWare 158.16 drivers provided by NVIDIA (which will soon be official). The other cards and the respective drivers used are listed below. We did not have scores for some of the older cards at higher resolutions like 1920 x 1440. For those cases, we have labeled them with a 'N.A'.

  • NVIDIA GeForce 8600 GTS 256MB (ForceWare 158.16)
  • NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTS 320MB (ForceWare 97.02)
  • NVIDIA GeForce 7950 GT 512MB (ForceWare 93.71)
  • NVIDIA GeForce 7900 GS 256MB (ForceWare 93.71)
  • ATI Radeon X1950 PRO 256MB (Catalyst 7.2)
  • ATI Radeon X1950 GT 256MB (Catalyst 7.2)

The benchmarks tested are listed below:

  • Futuremark 3DMark05 (ver. 120)
  • Futuremark 3DMark06 (ver. 102)
  • Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory (ver 1.3)
  • F.E.A.R
  • Company of Heroes (ver 1.3)
  • Quake 4 (ver 1.2)
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