Now that the new GeForce 8600 series is out and about, picking the right graphics card for $230 US or less has become trickier than ever. In fact the 8600 series is very unusual and is the first graphics card series we have seen in a long time that should become considerably better over time. There are a few things that will work to the advantage of the GeForce 8600 graphics cards in the future, such as Direct X10 support and greater use of shader technology in games. However for now these new mid-range graphics cards are having a rough time settling in.

Normally when a new memory technology is introduced the first 6-12 months are very difficult and often it is only the enthusiasts that are seen as early adopters. This was the case with DDR memory and again with DDR2 memory technology. The same kind of thing was found with the Serial ATA interface; initially building a system using a SATA hard drive was a nightmare, while now it’s a way of life for system builders. The transition from single core to dual core processors was a long road and now we are seeing the same thing with quad core processors. So when you think about it, almost all hardware suffers teething problems somewhere along the line!

That said, it is rare and almost unheard of for a graphics card series to gain popularity as it ages. Generally when a graphics card, such as the GeForce 7900 GT for example, is released the performance remains much the same throughout its life. Sure updated drivers can help improve performance, but the margins are so insignificant that the next generation graphics cards are typically much faster. However, this may not be the case with the 8600 GT and GTS graphics cards. While they are limited to the performance we are seeing in today’s games, these new graphics cards are built for future games and therefore may not age quite as rapidly.

This has been evident through S.T.A.L.K.E.R, where as older games such as F.E.A.R that are less reliant on shader technology murder the GeForce 8600 graphics cards. While the 8600 GTS was much slower than the old 7900 GS in F.E.A.R, the much newer gaming title S.T.A.L.K.E.R allows the 8600 GT to match the 7900 GS performance wise. Therefore when purchasing a new GeForce 8600 graphics card you have to ask yourself what is more important, playing games that are already available or waiting for new ones to come out? If games such as F.E.A.R and Company of Heroes are your primary agenda then a GeForce 7900 GS or Radeon X1950 Pro would most likely be a better option.

Anyway, enough about the performance of the GeForce 8600 series as we will get to more of that in a second, right now we have the new Inno3D GeForce 8600 GTS graphic card to look at. Recently Inno3D has been pushing their iChill graphics card series, which feature a range of Arctic-Cooling and Zalman coolers. The series is very impressive and recently we tested the iChill 7900GS graphics card featuring the Arctic-Cooling Silencer 6 VGA cooler.

This particular graphics card also featured a heavily overclocked core and memory frequencies which helped bolster performance. Unfortunately, today’s product is not quite as unique, featuring the reference Nvidia cooler and PCB design. The package is also very limited featuring no software titles at all, so you should be expecting a GeForce 8600 GTS graphics card at a bargain basement price then...

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