DX10 for the Masses: NVIDIA 8600 and 8500 Series Launch
by Derek Wilson on April 17, 2007 9:00 AM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
The Cards and The Test
Both of our cards, the 8600 GT and the 8600 GTS, feature two DVI ports and a 7-pin video port. The GTS requires a 6-pin PCIe power connector, while the GT is capable of running using only the power provided by the PCIe slot. Each card is a single slot solution, and there isn't really anything surprising about the hardware. Here's a look at what we're working with:
In testing the 8600 cards, we used 158.16 drivers. Because we tested under Windows XP, we had to use the 93 series driver for our 7 series parts, the 97 series driver for our 8800 parts and the 158.16 beta driver for our new 8600 hardware. While Vista drivers are unified and the 8800 drivers were recently updated, GeForce 7 series running Windows XP (the vast majority of NVIDIA's customers) have been stuck with the same driver revision since early November last year. We are certainly hoping that NVIDIA will release a new unified Windows XP driver soon. Testing with three different drivers from one hardware manufacturer is less than optimal.
We haven't done any Windows Vista testing this time around, as we still care about maximum performance and testing in the environment most people will be using their hardware. This is not to say that we are ignoring Vista: we will be looking into DX10 benchmarks in the very near future. Right now, there is just no reason to move our testing to a new platform.
Here's our test setup:
The latest 100 series drivers do expose an issue with BF2 that enables 16xCSAA when 4xMSAA is selected in game. To combat this, we used the control panel to select 4xAA under the "enhance" application setting.
All of our games were tested using the highest selectable in-game quality options with the exception of Rainbow Six: Vegas. Our 8600 hardware had a hard time keeping up with hardware skinning enabled even at 1024x768. In light of this, we tested with hardware skinning off and medium blur. We will be doing a follow up performance article including more games. We are looking at newer titles like Supreme Commander, S.T.A.L.K.E.R., and Command & Conquer 3. We will also follow up with video decode performance.
For the comparisons that follow, the 8600 GTS is priced similarly to AMD's X1950 Pro, while the 8600 GT competes with the X1950 GT.
Both of our cards, the 8600 GT and the 8600 GTS, feature two DVI ports and a 7-pin video port. The GTS requires a 6-pin PCIe power connector, while the GT is capable of running using only the power provided by the PCIe slot. Each card is a single slot solution, and there isn't really anything surprising about the hardware. Here's a look at what we're working with:
In testing the 8600 cards, we used 158.16 drivers. Because we tested under Windows XP, we had to use the 93 series driver for our 7 series parts, the 97 series driver for our 8800 parts and the 158.16 beta driver for our new 8600 hardware. While Vista drivers are unified and the 8800 drivers were recently updated, GeForce 7 series running Windows XP (the vast majority of NVIDIA's customers) have been stuck with the same driver revision since early November last year. We are certainly hoping that NVIDIA will release a new unified Windows XP driver soon. Testing with three different drivers from one hardware manufacturer is less than optimal.
We haven't done any Windows Vista testing this time around, as we still care about maximum performance and testing in the environment most people will be using their hardware. This is not to say that we are ignoring Vista: we will be looking into DX10 benchmarks in the very near future. Right now, there is just no reason to move our testing to a new platform.
Here's our test setup:
| System Test Configuration | |
| CPU: | Intel Core 2 Extreme X6800 (2.93GHz/4MB) |
| Motherboard: | EVGA nForce 680i SLI |
| Chipset: | NVIDIA nForce 680i SLI |
| Chipset Drivers: | NVIDIA nForce 9.35 |
| Hard Disk: | Seagate 7200.7 160GB SATA |
| Memory: | Corsair XMS2 DDR2-800 4-4-4-12 (1GB x 2) |
| Video Card: | Various |
| Video Drivers: | ATI Catalyst 7.3 NVIDIA ForceWare 93.71 (G70) NVIDIA ForceWare 97.94 (G80) NVIDIA ForceWare 158.16 (8600) |
| Desktop Resolution: | 1280 x 800 - 32-bit @ 60Hz |
| OS: | Windows XP Professional SP2 |
The latest 100 series drivers do expose an issue with BF2 that enables 16xCSAA when 4xMSAA is selected in game. To combat this, we used the control panel to select 4xAA under the "enhance" application setting.
All of our games were tested using the highest selectable in-game quality options with the exception of Rainbow Six: Vegas. Our 8600 hardware had a hard time keeping up with hardware skinning enabled even at 1024x768. In light of this, we tested with hardware skinning off and medium blur. We will be doing a follow up performance article including more games. We are looking at newer titles like Supreme Commander, S.T.A.L.K.E.R., and Command & Conquer 3. We will also follow up with video decode performance.
For the comparisons that follow, the 8600 GTS is priced similarly to AMD's X1950 Pro, while the 8600 GT competes with the X1950 GT.
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poohbear - Tuesday, April 17, 2007 - link
sweet review on new tech! thanks for the bar graphs this time! good to know my 512mb x1900xtx still kicks mainstream butt.:)tuteja1986 - Tuesday, April 17, 2007 - link
Total disapointment :( ... Could even beat up a X1950pro. They really need to sell at $150 otherwise you would be better off buying a X1950GT or 7900GS for $150 to $160. At the current $200 to $230 price you could get a X1950XT 256MB which could destroy it but that GPU needs a good powersupply. Only thing going for a 7600GT is the DX10 support and Full H.264 , VLC , Mepg 4 support but that can be found on even other cards.Staples - Tuesday, April 17, 2007 - link
I have been waiting several months for these cards and boy and I disappointed. I figured this month I would get a new PC since April 22 the prices of C2D also drop. My idea was to get a C2D600 and an 8600GTS but after their lack luster performance, my only option is an 8800GTS which is $50+ more. Not a huge difference but I am very compelled to wait until the refresh comes out and then maybe I can get a better deal. I really hate this senario where ATI is down, AMD is down and no competition is leading to high prices and crappy performance.Hopefully in another 6 months, AMD will be up to par on both their processors and CPUs. I will be holding on to my current system until then. I found it disappointing that these cards do not come with 512MB of memory but their performance is actually even more disappointing.
JarredWalton - Tuesday, April 17, 2007 - link
Well, the R6xx stuff from AMD should be out soon, so that's going to be the real determining factor. Hopefully the drivers do well (in Vista as well as XP), and as the conclusion states NVIDIA has certainly left the door open for AMD to take the lead. Preliminary reports surfacing around the 'net show that R600 looks very promising on the high end, and features and specs on the midrange parts look promising as well. GDDR4 could offer more bandwidth making the 128-bit bus feasible on the upper midrange parts as well. Should be interesting, so let's see if AMD can capitalize on NVIDIA's current shortcomings....PrinceGaz - Tuesday, April 17, 2007 - link
It might be a good idea to read more reviews before writing off the 8600 range.Over at , they found the 8600GTS easily beats the X1950Pro and even though the models they tested were factory overclocked, one of them had only a 5% core overclock and no memory overclock and was still well ahead of the X1950Pro. At worst the two cards were roughly even but in many tests the 8600GTS (with just 5% core o/c) was considerably faster. As say in the article link
So who do you believe? I guess I'll need to read several more reviews to see what's really going on.
Spanki - Tuesday, April 17, 2007 - link
I agree that that review it paints a different picture, but I have no reason to disbelieve it. I mean, they do their testing differently (try to find the best playable settings for each card), but it is what it is... I mean, the tables show the differences in the cards, at those (varrying settings) and so they therefore draw the conclusions they draw, based on that (with card X, I can enable option Y at these frame rates, but not on card Z - at least at the same resolutions). It's not like they tried to hide the settings they used or the frame-rates they got with each set-up. I found it an interesting perspective. ~shrug~Anyway, my personal opinion is that they neutered this chipset too much. There looks to be a substantial gap between 7900/8600 and 8800 level performance and the sweet-spot for this price-point would have been right in the middle of that gap... maybe they're planning a 8700 series chipset?
Griswold - Tuesday, April 17, 2007 - link
Thats a funny review. I'll stick to the other 90% that say this fish smells.GoatMonkey - Tuesday, April 17, 2007 - link
yacoub - Tuesday, April 17, 2007 - link
HardOCP's review disagrees with almost everyone else's results and also reads like a marketing advertisement for the product. I wouldn't give their review the time of day.PrinceGaz - Wednesday, April 18, 2007 - link
They're normally very good which after reading HardOCP's review immediately after AT (whose I read first), I thought I should mention that not everyone found the 8600GTS to be slower than the X1950Pro.However, after reading several more reviews on other usually reliable websites, the consensus seems to be that the 8600GTS is well behind the X1950Pro, which does make HardOCP's finding seem very odd.
I get the feeling that we're going to have to wait until nVidia get their drivers for this card sorted out as I suspect they are not all they could be, which they will hopefully have done by the time the HD2xxx series are launched, then the 8600/8500 cards can be retested and compared with their true competition.