Wolfpup
CAGiversary!
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2970
Yet another reason not to listen to rumors-the specs are worse than what was proposed (what was proposed most likely just being a guess).
The 8600GTS and GT differ based on clock speeds. They have:
-32 shaders (down from 128/96 on the 8800 cards)
-16 texture units (down from 24)
-8 ROPS (down from 20)
The shaders are supposed to be improved from the ones on the 8800s, and the video decoding has been significantly enhanced-with a supported program, 100% of the actual video decoding is handled by the GPU now, up to 40Mb/s (including H.264)
Performance results are about what you'd expect. Newer games like Oblivion or Rainbow Six: Vegas that are shader heavy do well (though of course poorly compared to the 8800 cards). Older games the 8600 is actually beaten by 7900 or x1950 hardware, although not too terribly.
It does always beat the Geforce 7600 it's replacing, which is something. Overall it doesn't blow you away, but it is a solid part, and of course the cheapest Direct X 10 part.
One important thing to note-the 8600 is a VERY poor deal on a price performance basis, just like all other hardware in that price range. The Geforce 8800GTS starting at $260 is absolutely undefeated on a price/performance basis. If you game on a desktop, it's the card to get (unless you can spend more).
Unfortunately there's still no news of a mobile part. And given the performance, I'm more disappointed than ever that we still don't have a mobile 8800
Yet another reason not to listen to rumors-the specs are worse than what was proposed (what was proposed most likely just being a guess).
The 8600GTS and GT differ based on clock speeds. They have:
-32 shaders (down from 128/96 on the 8800 cards)
-16 texture units (down from 24)
-8 ROPS (down from 20)
The shaders are supposed to be improved from the ones on the 8800s, and the video decoding has been significantly enhanced-with a supported program, 100% of the actual video decoding is handled by the GPU now, up to 40Mb/s (including H.264)
Performance results are about what you'd expect. Newer games like Oblivion or Rainbow Six: Vegas that are shader heavy do well (though of course poorly compared to the 8800 cards). Older games the 8600 is actually beaten by 7900 or x1950 hardware, although not too terribly.
It does always beat the Geforce 7600 it's replacing, which is something. Overall it doesn't blow you away, but it is a solid part, and of course the cheapest Direct X 10 part.
One important thing to note-the 8600 is a VERY poor deal on a price performance basis, just like all other hardware in that price range. The Geforce 8800GTS starting at $260 is absolutely undefeated on a price/performance basis. If you game on a desktop, it's the card to get (unless you can spend more).
Unfortunately there's still no news of a mobile part. And given the performance, I'm more disappointed than ever that we still don't have a mobile 8800
it up.. I'm all for the games success..