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BFG Geforce 8600GTS faster than the rest

by on10 July 2007
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Review: ThermoIntelligence cooler

 

Today we bring you one of the best Geforce 8600GTS cards we had a chance to test, and the name is BFG Geforce 8600 GTS OC2 256MB GDDR3 PCI-E with ThermoIntelligence cooler. The card is run by the popular G84 GPU, better known as Geforce 8600GTS OC2. BFG cards are usually over-clocked and run faster than reference speeds, and this one is no exception. As usual, over-clocking results in greater power usage, higher core temperatures but also more frames.

 

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Cooling a graphics processor has always been a problem, and while some stick to reference solutions BFG chose another path by introducing ThermoIntelligence, the new Geforce 8600GTS cooler. 

 

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We see the fan moved to the other part of the cooler, and that the name BFG really fit into the design. Besides looking good, it is important to note that Thermointelligence cools better than Nvidias reference cooler. By moving the fan as well as the copper part of the cooler that leans on the processor to the middle of the cooler, BFG really struck the chord, as the heat routing away from the core is much more efficient. Hot air is no longer being pushed into the dead air zone around the bracket, but to the inside of the CPU case where the case coolers can take care of it.  

 

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Although the fan is smaller than the reference ones, the loudness level is about the same. We couldn't quite measure it as we don't own a dB-meter, but BFG claims it's 39.2 dB (A) while the reference ones go up to 39.9 dB (A). ThermoIntelligence still takes up only one slot.

Core speed is 720MHz which is 45MHz more than reference speed of Geforce 8600GTS. With ThermoIntelligence cooler BFG is confident that your card will not overheat and so they offer life-time guarantee for these cards in the US, or ten years in EU. We don't know whether that's the case for non EU countries.

Shader speed is 1566MHz, compared to reference 1450MHz. Memory wasn't left unchanged either so BFG 8600GTS OC2 card shows 220MHz more than reference 2000MHz. Although the memory is fast, the fact that it uses 128bit interface is greatly inhibiting the graphics chips capabilities. The memory bandwidth is 36.2GB/sec.

While idle, the core temperature stuck around 48°C, and while testing it reached 68°C.

BFG claims that ThermoIntelligence cooling lowers the GPU temperature for about 5°C compared to reference cooling. In SLI, secondary card is cooler by 6°C, whereas the primary is cooler by 11°C.

We didn't try measuring the temperature in SLI, but we did replace the BFG cooler with the reference one and this is what we've seen.
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While idle, the core temperature was 51°C, and while testing it reacher 75°C. It proves that ThermoIntelligence really does a good job. While idle, the temperature is 3°C less, but the real power of this cooler can be seen in 3D apps when the temperature is 7°C lower in comparison to the Nvidias reference cooler.

 

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The contents of the box are usual. Inside you'll find: BFG Nvidia Geforce 8600 GTS OC2 256MB graphics card, User Manual, two DVI to VGA adapters, dual 4-pin Molex to single 6-pin PCI-Express power adapter, HDTV dongle. Both DVI connectors are Dual-Link DVI, and HDCP is supported too.

 

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Testbed

 

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Motherboard:
Nforce 680i EVGA board (Supplied by EVGA)
 
CPU:
Intel Core 2 Duo 6800 Extreme edition (Supplied by Intel)

CPU Cooler:
Akasa EVO AK 922 Blue Athlon 64/X2/FX cooler and Intel CPU's (Supplied by Akasa)

Memory:
OCZ Reaper PC2-8500 1066MHz 5-5-5-15  (Supplied by OCZ)
CL5-5-5-15-CR2T at 2.3V

Graphics card:

BFG 8600GTS OC2 (Supplied by BFG

Gainward Geforce 8600GTS (Supplied by Gainward)

PSU:
OCZ GameXStream 700W (Supplied by OCZ)

Hard disk:
Seagate Barracuda 7200.9 500GB SATA (Supplied by Seagate)


Testing 

BFG Geforce 8600GTS OC2 is an over-clocked card running at core 720MHz, and 2220MHz memory speed. To this point we've tested a number of 8600GTS, but none of them had Shaders running at high 1566MHz. All that plus the ThermoIntelligence cooler made BFG a hero among Geforce 8600GTS graphics cards.

We put the BFG card against Nvidias reference 8600GTS card, and also with powerful Gainward Geforce 8600GTS 512MB. Both cards run at reference speed.

Talking about speed, we clocked our BFG Geforce 8600GTS OC2 card a 100MHz more than reference speed. 775MHz for the core is quite a good result. Memory running at 1110MHz is already peaking but we managed to squeeze 30MHz more.

3DMarks


 

Composite Figures 3Dmark 03

3DMark 03

Game2

Game3

Game4

8600GTS reference 675/2000MHz

17566

133.0

101.4

110.1

Gainward 8600GTS 675/2016MHz 512MB

20340

152.9

120.5

135.8

BFG 8600GTS OC2 720/2220MHz

21626

164.0

128.4

144.4

 

 

 

 

 

Composite Figures 3Dmark 03

Single Texturinng

Multi Textur.

Vertex Shader

Pixel Shader 2.0

8600GTS reference 675/2000MHz

2638.5

7434.6

59.0

227.7

Gainward 8600GTS 675/2016MHz 512MB

2688.2

8808.0

67.0

276.0

BFG 8600GTS OC2 720/2220MHz

2868.4

9438.4

71.1

296.1

 

 

 

 

 


Scoring 21626 marks, BFG Geforce 8600GTS OC2 is 23% faster than reference card which scored 17566 marks. Although Gainward 8600GTS has 512MB of memory, BFG cards core and memory speed played a decisive role.

 

Composite Figures 3Dmark 05

3DMark 05

Game1

Game2

Game3

8600GTS reference 675/2000MHz

11407

48.0

36.1

54.9

Gainward 8600GTS 675/2016MHz 512MB

12408

54.0

38.0

59.5

BFG 8600GTS OC2 720/2220MHz

13093

56.3

40.2

63.4

 

 

 

 

 

Composite Figures 3Dmark 05

Single Texturinng

Multi Textur.

Pixel Shader

VS/VS
complex

8600GTS reference 675/2000MHz

2723.5

8094.5

179.5

117.2/123.9

Gainward 8600GTS 675/2016MHz 512MB

2721.6

9108.9

188.6

143.9/131.5

BFG 8600GTS OC2 720/2220MHz

2901.1

9752.5

201.5

138.0/138.9

 

 

 

 

 


In 3Dmark05 however, the difference is significantly lower than in the previous test and it shows 14.8%. Thanks to 512MB of memory, Gainward wins in Vertex Shader test, and we see a good score of 12408 marks in the final score of 3Dmark 05 test.

Composite Figures 3Dmark 06

3DMark 06

 

 

 

8600GTS referenc 675/2000MHz

5513

 

 

 

Gainward 8600GTS 675/2016MHz 512MB

5890

 

 

 

BFG 8600GTS OC2 720/2220MHz

6292

 

 

 

BFG 8600GTS OC2 750/2220MHz

6426

 

 

 

BFG 8600GTS OC2 760/2220MHz

6444

 

 

 

BFG 8600GTS OC2 775/2220MHz

6541

 

 

 

BFG 8600GTS OC2 775/2280MHz

6601

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

SM2.0 Test

Score

GT1

GT2

 

8600GTS referenc 675/2000MHz

2287

17.655

20.470

 

Gainward 8600GTS 675/2016MHz 512MB

2469

19.311

21.842

Last modified on 10 July 2007
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