Introduction and the 8600 GTS XXX

XFX has brought their XXX offering of GeForce 8600 GTS and GT cards to the PC Perspective testing bench to see how they hold up to the recent competition. We also take the time to run some SLI benchmarks with both GTS and GT models.

Some more GeForce 8600 Action

If I didn’t know better, it might appear that we haven’t had anything better to do than test NVIDIA’s new G84/G86 graphics boards in the past week.  In reality we are still as swamped as ever but I felt it was important to get as much information out about this product launch quickly before the relevancy of it fades.  So, we are finishing up our 8600 GTS and 8600 GT product reviews with a set of cards from XFX.

I covered the technology and detailed specifications of the GeForce 8600 GTS and 8600 GT graphics cards in our previous reviews, so I won’t bother repeating it here.  But I would highly recommend you read them over first (BFG 8600 GTS OC, EVGA 8600 GT) so you can get a good idea of the GPUs we are testing today, their market segments and competition from ATI and previous NVIDIA generations. 

The XFX 8600 GTS XXX

Despite what you might be hoping, the “XXX” model of the XFX card is nothing more than their highest overclocked model; sorry to disappoint!

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XFX GeForce 8600 GTS XXX

The XFX 8600 GTS XXX uses the same cooler as the reference 8600 GTS cards but as the name indicates, overclocks the frequencies well over the default speeds setup by NVIDIA:

  • 730 MHz core clock versus 675 MHz reference speed
  • 2.26 GHz memory clock versus 2.0 GHz reference speed

These are healthy overclocks and will result in performance past the stock cards on the market in nearly all cases.

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XFX GeForce 8600 GTS XXX – PCIe power connector

Just as with the other 8600 GTS cards, the XFX XXX model requires a single 6-pin PCIe power connector

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XFX GeForce 8600 GTS XXX – SLI connection

The SLI connection lives on, but only a single one, for connecting a second card for improved gaming performance.  We’ll cover SLI performance with the 8600 GTS cards in our benchmarks so be sure to catch that!

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XFX GeForce 8600 GTS XXX – dual dual-link DVI and HDTV output

The GeForce 8600 GTS cards all feature two dual-link DVI connections for support for the ultra-high-res monitors like the new 30″ ones that run at 2560×1600.  The TV output supports HDTV via an included dongle.

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The extras included with the XFX cards (both of them in this case) include a single VGA-to-DVI adaptor, a power adaptor, S-video cable and instructions.  The XFX 8600 cards will also include a free copy of the orignal Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter — not the newest title out there but free is always good.  Notice though that XFX did NOT include an HDTV dongle with these cards; quite confusing indeed.

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