The Official GF 8600 & 8500 reviews thread

Because it is roughly twice the price ot the 7600GT?
It is even priced higher than the 7950GT and the x1950XT, both of which absolutely crush it in terms of performance.
Compared to its predecessor from the same house, the 7950GT, the 8800GTS is more expensive, performs far below, and still manages to draw more power.... Triple ouch.

So what on earth is there to be positive about? The DX10 checkbox mark?

 

The 1:1 TA:TF architecture sticks out like a sore thumb in comparison with G80. Does this invalidate the arguments made for 1:2?

Jawed

 

Is anyone else a bit confused by HardOCP's review? Everyone else was a bit "eh" by the card and the [H] review makes it sound like the best thing in the world?!?!?!?!

 

Compared to the 7950GT there are some pretty big quality boosts. HQ AF? support for 16x CSAA? It may not be an insane performance power house but it does have some nice improvements over Nvidias previous gen.

Chris

 

The x1950pro is a "beast" of a card? Let's not get so dramatic now

According to the reviews, the 8600 GTS (with 128 bit bus) has higher peformance and better image quality than the X1950 Pro (with 256 bit bus) in the following games:

HardOCP.com
Elder Scrolls Oblivion
Stalker
Flight Simulator X
Approximately equal performance in (with option of higher quality AF on Geforce 8600 GTS): Battlefield 2142, World of Warcraft

Firingsquad.com
3dmark06 game tests, SM 2.0 score, and SM3.0 score
Oblivion - with and without HDR
Quake 4
Stalker
Far Cry
Approximately equal performance in (with option of higher quality AF on Geforce 8600 GTS): Battlefield 2142, Half Life 2
Slightly lower performance (with option of higher quality AF on Geforce 8600 GTS) in: FEAR, Call of Duty 2, Pacific Fighters
Significantly lower performance (with option of higher quality AF on Geforce 8600 GTS) in: Company of Heros


The main area where the 8600 GTS is disappointing is in comparison to the 8800 GTS 320MB. But then again, looking at the architectural differences, that shouldn't be surprising at all. Also, street prices for the 8600 GTS will certainly be much much lower than the 8800 GTS, probably $100 or more difference between the two.

All in all, using a 128 bit bus, the 8600 GTS performs very well. Add to that the full DirectX 10 featureset, and an impressive video processing engine that is a big advancement over the prior generation of cards, and it's a pretty good offering. One would think a 256 bit variant of the 8800 series architecture would perform somewhere right in between the 8600 GTS 256MB and 8800 GTS 320MB, and would fit nicely into the lineup.

 

Well according to this test done by Hardware.no : http://www.hardware.no/tester/skjermkort/geforce_8600_gts_og_gt/38478
the X1950 Pro pretty much wins in every single game benchmark. (Battlefield 2, F.E.A.R, Serious Sam 2 & Quake 4)

I havent read all the reviews yet, but from my fast glance so far it seems HardOCP is getting very different results compared to most others, why i have no idea though.

 

EXACTLY!!! What gives?

 

Exactly.

The previous two midrange parts NV43, G73 were faster than the prior flagships (NV35, NV40) while this one doesnt even come close to filling those shoes.

I agree with Hexus' ending note:

 

Yeah i guess that makes sense, that their test-suite focuses less on AA and bandwidth intensive things, than many of the other reviews have done....

I guess they should give some sort of reason why they would prefer a game running in 1600x1200 with no AA vs the same game running at 1280x1024 with AA or similiar. I.e what do they focus on, maximum resolution, or acceptable AA as their priority in their testing.

 

I think their results seem credible. They're stressing IQ options in the games, e.g. shadowing, where the z-only fillrate of X1950Pro is, frankly, doomed.

Also they're using the best available AA, which means turning on transparency AA if at all possible. How many review sites ever bother with transparency AA?

Jawed

 

I think people are disappointed because with both the 6600 GT and 7600 GT, Nvidia offered much more performance across the board, compared with the previous generation of cards retailing at that price point.

This time though Nvidia has had to budget for DirectX 10, so equal performance for the same number of transistors is still pretty impressive.

 

Three of their five games uses lots of transparency (trees, fences). MSAA does nothing for the resulting aliasing, the best solutions are either transparency AA or increased resolution.

Jawed

 

I would have to say it's because of the bus advantage that the x1950pro is beating out the 8600 in little over 50% of the test would you not say? Let's not forget even though the 8600 is 128bit, it's still a next generation USA arc in the mid range performance sector(same sector as the 1950pro), with SM4, DX10.

 

According to benchmarks... the 8600 is only a tad faster than 7600, but priced like a 7900.

The 8600GTS delivers 40-50% of the performance of the 320MB 8800GTS for 70% of the price.

It's not really worth it at this time, esp since there's no DX10 games out yet.

 

I wouldn't say that. HardOCP and Firingsquad results matched pretty well for the most part, with 8600 GTS outperforming the X1950 Pro on Oblivion and Stalker, and having similar performance in BF 2142. Clearly, it depends on the testing suite of games, and whether or not higher resolutions and lower AA are favored in testing over higher levels of AA and lower resolution.

 

8600GTS isn't in the same sector as 1950Pro IMO. Aren't 7600GT and X1650XT the comparable parts from last generation? The hobbled high end parts like 7900GS and X1950Pro are in a different league no?

Note I'm not talking about price here - just positioning within the family of products.

 

I don't know, from [H] and Firingsquad, it seems the 8600 GTS was either faster or very similar performance to X1950 Pro most of the time, with the Pro occasionally getting the upper hand. In the Hexus review, the Pro was usually a bit ahead. At Anandtech, the 8600 GTS was ahead in some scenarios, behind in others, and about even most of the time.

In comparison to an 8800 GTX, consider this: 8600 GTS has 1/4 the shader processing power, 1/3 the ROP throughput, and just a bit more than 1/3 the bandwith. Just because it has a good feature set and DirectX 10 compatibility doesn't mean it is supposed to be a powerhouse compared to other cards with more ROP throughput and higher bandwith. Given the major deficit that it has against 8800 cards in several important architectural areas, the 8600 GTS's performance is probably all that one could hope for when all things are considered. The hardware would unquestionably need to be beefed up more in order to have a better chance at challenging the likes of 8800 GTS 320MB.