Date:
Tuesday , April 17, 2007
Author:
Brent Justice
Editor:
Kyle Bennett
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BFGTech and XFX GeForce 8600 GTS

NVIDIA’s DX10 answers to the mainstream video card market are finally here with new GeForce 8 series GPUs ranging from $89-$229. We have the BFGTech GeForce 8600 GTS OC and the XFX GeForce 8600 GTS XXX we put to the test playing real games and the newest STALKER.

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GeForce 8600 GTS

Let’s start with the performance mainstream GPU. NVIDIA is hard launching today the GeForce 8600 GTS. This video card has a suggested price of $199-$229. There will definitely be factory overclocked versions from add-in-board partners and you can most likely expect those versions to fall closer to $230. The GeForce 8600 GTS will have 256 MB of GDDR3 RAM on a 128-bit memory bus. Right off the bat that 128-bit memory bus sounds quite crippling for this price range, but as you will see below NVIDIA offsets it with a high memory clock frequency.

The GeForce 8600 GTS is based on a new GPU, known internally as the “G84.” The G84 uses a new manufacturing process; 80nm. 80nm is TSMC’s half-node processes, simply a lithographic shrink, which is a small step down from 90mn that the 8800 GTS and 8800 GTX use. With 80nm process we should see less power draw and the ability for higher clock speeds. The G84 is based on the same unified architecture technology found in the G80, so every single 3D feature you will find in the 8800 GTS and GTX is present with the GeForce 8600 GTS. What makes this GPU different, besides the memory capacity and bandwidth, is the reduction of streaming processors and ROP partitions.

The GeForce 8800 GTX has 128 streaming processors with 24 ROPs and in the GeForce 8800 GTS there are 96 SPs and 20 ROPs. If you recall, streaming processors are scalar units inside the GPU which are able to work on pixel, vertex or geometry shader information, replacing the traditional pixel/vertex pipeline of previous generation GPUs. The GeForce 8600 GTS has 32 streaming processors and 8 ROPs.

Though the streaming processors have been cut to 32, all is not gloomy as the clock speeds have been set enormously high. The “core” (which are the ROPs and everything besides the streaming processors) runs at 675 MHz on the GeForce 8600 GTS. The streaming processors themselves run at 1.45 GHz. Most impressively, the memory frequency is going to be running at 1000 MHz (2 GHz DDR). Still, even with that high of a memory clock speed, 2 GHz, with a 128-bit bus that is 32 GB/sec of bandwidth. Compare that to 86 GB/sec on the GeForce 8800 GTX and it puts it in perspective.

This is an incredibly high memory and core clock frequency for a mainstream GPU. These are the fastest stock speeds I’ve ever seen on a GPU at this price point. Expect factory overclocked video cards to exceed 700 MHz core speed out of the box!

NVIDIA suggests that GeForce 8600 GTS complete system will require a minimum 350 watt power supply for single card and 450w power supply for SLI; so 100 watts of PSU power per card is suggested. The maximum power draw of the GeForce 8600 GTS is 71 watts and does require a 6-pin auxiliary power connector.

GeForce 8600 GT

Underneath the GeForce 8600 GTS will be the GeForce 8600 GT. Unlike the GeForce 8600 GTS the GeForce 8600 GT will not be available for purchase today. Instead, NVIDIA is announcing the GPU today and promising availability of retail cards on or before May 1st. The same will be true with the GeForce 8500 GT described below. We’ll talk more about hard launches, and how the “hard launch” meaning may be changing in the conclusion.

The GeForce 8600 GT is the same G84 GPU as the GeForce 8600 GTS containing the exact same feature set and is also 80nm. The suggested price though is an even more appealing $149-$159. For this price you get a video card that has 256 MB of GDDR-3 on a 128-bit memory bus just like the GeForce 8600 GTS. In fact, the only difference is core, stream processor and memory frequencies. There are still 32 stream processors and 8 ROPs on board.

The core frequency has been reduced to 540 MHz, which is quite a leap down from 675 MHz on the 8600 GTS. The stream processors have also been reduced in frequency down to 1.18 GHz from 1.45 GHz on the 8600 GTS. The memory loses 10 GB/sec of bandwidth by dropping to 700 MHz (1.4 GHz DDR) which gives us 22.4 GB/sec of bandwidth. The power draw is a very low 43 watts at these clock speeds. With the clock frequencies being the only differences we are sure this will be an interesting video card to look at for overclocking potential, to see if it can reach near 8600 GTS levels.

GeForce 8500 GT

The GeForce 8500 GT is a rather large drop down in specifications from the GeForce 8600 GT or GTS. The GeForce 8500 GT is known code named “G86,” and is a different GPU from the 8600 series. It is also 80nm, has a unified architecture and DirectX 10 support, but its streaming processors and ROPs have taken a severe hit. The suggested price will be between $89 and $129.

There will be a total of 16 stream processors and 8 ROPs in the 8500 GT. The core will run at 450 MHz, streaming processors at 900 MHz, and memory frequency at 400 MHz (800 MHz DDR). Memory will be made up of 256 MB or 512 MB of DDR2 on a 128-bit memory bus. At that frequency we have a measly 12.8 GB/sec of memory bandwidth available. Power draw with the GeForce 8500 GT is surprisingly not that much lower than the GeForce 8600 GT despite the streaming processors being cut in half, NVIDIA claims a maximum power draw of 40 watts for the 8500 GT.

Supporting the new video processor, this video card is geared more toward the home theater enthusiast who does some slight gaming on the side. NVIDIA states that this video card will provide a great Windows Vista experience and great HD movie experience for around $100.

All three video cards are single-slot video cards utilizing a heatsink and fan cooling unit. SLI is supported on all three video cards as well with HDCP support.

OEM Cards

There are actually going to be two more GPUs out there that will be OEM only. There will be a GeForce 8400 GS and GeForce 8300 GS scheduled for availability sometime in April. Both GPUs support DirectX 10 but only the GeForce 8400 GS supports the new video processor, the GeForce 8300 GS does not use the new video processor. Both GPUs run with a core frequency of 450 MHz and a memory frequency of 400 MHz (800 MHz DDR) on a 64-bit bus. Seeing these specifications it looks like we may be seeing some mobile notebook GeForce 8 series GPUs on the horizon.

There is indeed another card on the horizon, a very high-end card which is being talked about publicly since the name was recently exposed by NVIDIA in a driver release. If you look about in our forums you will see an “8800 Ultra” being talked about.