Published in Reviews

EVGA Geforce 8600GTS tested

by on20 April 2007

Index

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Review: Default speed can overclock

 
EVGA has two versions of the 8600 GTS cards. We got the reference clocked part with a €200 price tag while there is a bit more expensive card clocked at 720 MHz core and 2100 MHz memory.

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The card we got is clocked at 675 MHz core and 2016 MHz memory. I guess that bios clocked the card at this speed. It has 32 Shader units clocked at massive 1450 MHz and eight ROPs. As with every 8600 GTS / GT card the card is limited to 128 bit memory interface.

The card is not that special and it is based on Nvidia's reference design. It comes in a modest box and 10 years limited warranty so this is the hard point of the card. It has a green PCB and two DVI outs, SLI connector, single slot cooler in black, and six pin PCIe power in. The box looks nice and small and EVGA offers a 90 days step up program where you can upgrade your graphic card within 90 days after the purchase.

 

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The box includes two DVI dongles, S-video cable and CD with drivers. There were no games inside.




We used:

Intel Core 2 Duo 6800 Extreme edition
Nforce 680i EVGA board
Corsair Dominator TWIN2X1024-8500 at 5-5-5-15 at 1066 MHz
Seagate Barracuda 7200.9 400GB SATA NCQ hard drive
Akasa EVO AK 922 Blue Athlon 64/X2/FX cooler and Intel CPU's
Silverstone DA750W modular PSU

Since the card scored a frame or two more than any reference card would we decide to overclock it a bit. We scored some nice scores. It can probably go even more but we stopped at 730 MHz core and 2220 MHz memory. This surpasses every overclocked card on the market including the EVGA Superclocked card. Now we got some interesting scores. During the overclocking the card temperature didn’t exceeded 62 degrees Celsius while at the default speed it worked at 52 to 53 Degrees Celsius.

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Non overclocked card does not heat much more during the extensive game play it only reached 55 Degrees Celsius.
 

Composite Figures 3Dmark 03

3DMark 03

Game2

Game3

Game4

Nvidia 7600GT 560/1400MHz

14364

94.9

85.3

86.4

Nvidia 8600GT 540/1400MHz

14399

107.6

83.4

89.7

Nvidia 8600GTS 675/2000MHz

17566

133.0

101.4

110.1

EVGA 8600GTS 675/2016MHz

17595

133.3

101.6

110.3

EVGA 8600GTS 730/2220MHz OC

18931

145.6

109.7

119.5

 

 

 

 

 

Composite Figures 3Dmark 03

Single Texturinng

Multi Textur.

Vertex Shader

Pixel Shader 2.0

Nvidia 7600GT 560/1400MHz

2364.4

6400.3

43.3

279.8

Nvidia 8600GT 540/1400MHz

2110.6

6043.0

48.0

187.5

Nvidia 8600GTS 675/2000MHz

2638.5

7434.6

59.0

227.7

EVGA 8600GTS 675/2016MHz

2647.2

7441.1

59.0

229.1

EVGA 8600GTS 730/2220MHz OC

2875.5

8029.7

63.5

251.0

 

 

 

 

 

Composite Figures 3Dmark 05

3DMark 05

Game1

Game2

Game3

Nvidia 7600GT 560/1400MHz

6132

28.5

18.0

28.7

Nvidia 8600GT 540/1400MHz

9317

39.2

29.5

44.7

Nvidia 8600GTS 675/2000MHz

11407

48.0

36.1

54.9

EVGA 8600GTS 675/2016MHz

11441

48.2

36.1

55.1

EVGA 8600GTS 730/2220MHz OC

12359

52.0

38.8

59.9

 

 

 

 

 

Composite Figures 3Dmark 05

Single Texturinng

Multi Textur.

Pixel Shader

VS/VS
complex

Nvidia 7600GT 560/1400MHz

2811.8

6648.9

168.7

51.3/37.2

Nvidia 8600GT 540/1400MHz

2183.1

6607.0

146.9

98.7/100.0

Nvidia 8600GTS 675/2000MHz

2723.5

8094.5

179.5

117.2/123.9

EVGA 8600GTS 675/2016MHz

2722.0

8100.3

179.8

118.5/125.4

EVGA 8600GTS 730/2220MHz OC

2940.3

8709.6

194.2

131.0/136.7

 
We won't comment much EVGA's non overclocking scores. They are exactly the same or at least almost identical to any other Nvidia reference card. But once we overclocked the card we got some difference.The card almost reached 19000 in 3Dmark03 and this is a great score. This is almost 1500 from the default score.

In 3Dmark05 we scored about 1000 more with the overclocked card. This overclock is just enough to touch the 6000 marks in 3DMark06 test and it scores only 37 points less.

 

Composite Figures 3Dmark 06

3DMark 06

 

 

 

Nvidia 7600GT 560/1400MHz

3314

 

 

 

Nvidia 8600GT 540/1400MHz

4558

 

 

 

Nvidia 8600GTS 675/2000MHz

5513

 

 

 

EVGA 8600GTS 675/2016MHz

5544

 

 

 

EVGA 8600GTS 730/2220MHz OC

5963

 

 

Last modified on 20 April 2007
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