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Gainward Bliss 8600 GTS beats the reference

by on17 April 2007
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Review: Gainward BLISS GeForce 8600 GTS GS, 256MB GDDR3 


Gainward
decided to make an overclocked Geforce 8600 GTS version. We already told you everything that you should know about the Geforce 8600 GTS.

Lets repeat one more time. Nvidia recomends 675 MHz speed for the G84 chip and the 128 bit memory works at 2000 MHz. The Shader units at this chips works at 1.5 GHz shaderclock.


Gainward decided to go for a bit more extreme side. It overclocked the card to 725 MHz a full 50 MHz faster then the recommended speed, while the memory works at an incredible 2200 MHz. Of course Gainward can not overcome the limitations of the 128 bit memory bus, but the card still works well in FSAA and Aniso settings due to its high memory clock. The card comes with 256 MB memory.
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G84, Geforce 8600 series are the first sub $200 or €200 DirectX 10 cards to hit the market. The bad news is that even today there are no DirectX 10 games out, but you should better be prepared. ATI's competition is still at least one month away and until then Gainward has all the time in the world to make some DirectX 10 money.

The card itself doesn’t run hot at all. The new innovative cooler is quiet and it looks good in black. Gainward tweaked the reference design and made its PCB in red while the dual-slot cooler is black with a big and silent 72mm fan in the middle of the board.


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Gainward BLISS GeForce 8600 GTS GS, 256MB GDDR3, 2x DVI, TV-out, PCIe (8460)

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What's in the box


The box includes two DVI dongles, S-Video to RGBA cable and power connector 6 pin PCIe.  The card needs the additional power. You will also find Cyberlink DVD Power 2 go 5.5, power producer 3.2, power back 2.0 and media show 3.0, a manual and a driver CD.   

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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

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Composite Figures 3Dmark 03

3DMark 03

Game2

Game3

Game4

Sparcle Calibre 7600GT 650/1600MHz

16639

111.7

99.1

101.2

Nvidia 7600GT 560/1400MHz

14364

94.9

85.3

86.4

Nvidia 8600GTS 675/2000MHz

17566

133.0

101.4

110.1

Gainward 8600GTS 725/2200MHz

18916

144.6

109.4

119.2

 

 

 

 

 

Composite Figures 3Dmark 03

Single Texturinng

Multi Textur.

Vertex Shader

Pixel Shader 2.0

Sparcle Calibre 7600GT 650/1600MHz

2728.9

7431.0

48.5

327.6

Nvidia 7600GT 560/1400MHz

2364.4

6400.3

43.3

279.8

Nvidia 8600GTS 675/2000MHz

2638.5

7434.6

59.0

227.7

Gainward 8600GTS 725/2200MHz

2844.8

8015.4

63.5

249.6

 

 

 

 

 

Composite Figures 3Dmark 05

3DMark 05

Game1

Game2

Game3

Sparcle Calibre 7600GT 650/1600MHz

7045

32.4

20.8

33.2

Nvidia 7600GT 560/1400MHz

6132

28.5

18.0

28.7

Nvidia 8600GTS 675/2000MHz

11407

48.0

36.1

54.9

Gainward 8600GTS 725/2200MHz

12354

52.0

38.9

59.7

 

 

 

 

 

Composite Figures 3Dmark 05

Single Texturinng

Multi Textur.

Pixel Shader

VS/VS
complex

Sparcle Calibre 7600GT 650/1600MHz

3229.5

7693.0

198.5

58.4/42.4

Nvidia 7600GT 560/1400MHz

2811.8

6648.9

168.7

51.3/37.2

Nvidia 8600GTS 675/2000MHz

2723.5

8094.5

179.5

117.2/123.9

Gainward 8600GTS 725/2200MHz

2904.9

8688.9

193.6

130.8/136.3


Let's start with 3Dmark03. Gainward's card is the fastest one and almost scores 19000 in 3Dmark03. The reference clocked card at 675 / 2000 MHz scores 17566 so more than 1300 points less then the fastest one. Gainward 8600 GTS is 4500 marks faster than the previous king of the mainstream 7600 GT, but only 2300 points faster than Sparkle's overclocked 7600 GT at 80 nanometre.

In 3Dmark05 Gainward's overclocked card scores around 900 points more than the default clocked 8600 GTS. It is great to compare this card to a 7600 GT as the 8600 GTS Bliss edition is more than twice as fast in this test. Even the new 7600 GT at 80 nanometre from Sparkle is left behind and the 8600 GTS, even at its default clock, scores much better.

 

Composite Figures 3Dmark 06

3DMark 06

 

 

 

Sparcle Calibre 7600GT 650/1600MHz

3811

 

 

 

Nvidia 7600GT 560/1400MHz

3314

 

 

 

Nvidia 8600GTS 675/2000MHz

5513

 

 

 

Gainward 8600GTS 725/2200MHz

5916

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

SM2.0 Test

Score

GT1

GT2

 

Sparcle Calibre 7600GT 650/1600MHz

1483

12.224

12.498

 

Nvidia 7600GT 560/1400MHz

1276

10.524

10.747

 

Nvidia 8600GTS 675/2000MHz

2287

17.655

20.470

Last modified on 19 April 2007
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