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- Date:
- Monday , August 13, 2007
- Author:
- Mark Warner
- Editor:
- Brent Justice
- Google +1
Gigabyte's Silent GeForce 8600 GT and 8600 GTS
We have two brand new Gigabyte passively cooled silent video cards to evaluate today. The Gigabyte GeForce 8600 GT features Silent-Pipe II technology and the Gigabyte GeForce 8600 GTS features Silent-Pipe III. The question for enthusiasts out there is which is the better value for gaming and how high do they overclock?
Gigabyte
Gigabyte is familiar to most PC hardware enthusiasts. They were founded in 1986 by a team of eight electronics engineers. At first, they specialized only in motherboard design. In a few short years, they expanded their product lineup to include graphics cards, notebooks, communications equipment, network servers, computer chassis', and cooling devices. Soon, they plan to add desktop computers, mobile phones, and desktop peripherals such as LCD displays and input devices, among others.
We are evaluating two Gigabyte mainstream video cards today. First we will look at the GV-NX86T256H, featuring an NVIDIA GeForce 8600 GT GPU. Then, we're going to look at the GV-NX86S256E, which features an NVIDIA GeForce 8600 GTS GPU. Both of these video cards are passively cooled with Gigabyte's Silent-Pipe technology, but each video card uses a different version of that technology.
The NVIDIA GeForce 8600 GT and GTS GPUs
On Tuesday, April 17th of 2007, NVIDIA launched the mainstream and value GPUs of the GeForce 8 series: The GeForce 8600 GTS, the GeForce 8600 GT, and the GeForce 8500 GT. Today, we are evaluating the GeForce 8600 GT and GTS. The GeForce 8600 GT and GTS are identical in feature set. They are both made on an 80nm process, and they both have 32 streaming processors and 8 ROPs. Both GPUs are designed to be connected to 256 MB of GDDR3 running on a 128-bit bus. As a matter of fact, the only two differences between them are clock speeds and memory frequencies.
The faster version, the GeForce 8600 GTS, has a core reference speed of 675 MHz, a memory reference speed of 2 GHz DDR (1.0 GHz actual), and a streaming processor reference speed of 1.45 GHz. It is designed to draw about 71 watts of power during operation. The GeForce 8600 GT is significantly slower, but also uses significantly less power. It is designed to consume 43 watts and comes in at 540 MHz on the GPU, 1.4 GHz DDR (700 MHz actual) on the memory, and 1.18 GHz on the streaming processors. Because of the low power usage specification, the GeForce 8600 GT does not require the now typical 6-pin auxiliary power supply connector.
Gigabyte GV-NX86T256H GeForce 8600 GT Silent
The GV-NX86T256H GeForce 8600 GT features Gigabyte's Silent-Pipe II cooling system. It appears to be a relatively simple solution, utilizing a single heat pipe that snakes around underneath the heatsink in order to disperse heat away from the GPU. It is somewhat large and quite conspicuous. There are, of course, no moving parts on this cooling device.
Gigabyte states that this cooling design is a natural convection design that utilizes the difference between the interior and exterior temperatures of your case. This apparently is a patent pending technology. Gigabyte makes some high claims that the inner heatpipe has such a great amount of heat conduction that it can deliver 100 times cooler thermal performance compared to a regular heatsink. The heatsink itself is “screened” so that air from the front of your case moves through the heatsink more efficiently according to Gigabyte. Currently the only two models to use Silent-Pipe II are the GV-NX86T256H (GeForce 8600 GT) and the GV-RX26T256H (Radeon HD 2600 XT).
Apart from the cooler, the Gigabyte GeForce 8600 GT Silent uses a reference designed PCB based on a GeForce 8600 GT GPU. The GV-NX86T256H is factory overclocked to 600 MHz for the GPU frequency, and the 256 MB of GDDR3 memory comes clocked at 1.44 GHz DDR, or 720 MHz actual. That provides a 60 MHz core frequency advantage from reference clock speeds and a smaller 20 MHz (40 MHz DDR) advantage for the memory.
When a potential customer first picks up the box, he or she may not know there is actually a video card inside. So much attention and packaging real estate is dedicated to boasting about the inclusion of the full version of Supreme Commander, that one might miss the relatively small Gigabyte labeling at the bottom of the front of the box. This seems to be the new norm for Gigabyte, as our last evaluation of a Gigabyte video card showed a similar theme. In spite of the conspicuous packaging, however, the front of the box does actually convey all of the necessary information to buyers. It just may take a minute to notice it. Strangely, there is nothing indicating that the included video card is passively cooled. The back side of the box thankfully does include information to let the buyer know that he or she is getting something special with the Silent-Pipe II technology.
The front of the blue PCB is mostly obscured by the large black heat-sink. There are a few power management components that are not covered in an area near the SLI connector; presumably this is to leave room for the SLI connector. There is a small chrome GIGABYTE logo, and the text "Silent-Pipe II" is embossed into the leading face of the heat-sink, next to the front PCI retention bracket. Gigabyte has provided some protection by including a rubbery plastic cover for the SLI bridge connector. Plastic covers are also found placed over both DVI connectors, and a plastic plug has been inserted into the HDTV output port. Clearly, Gigabyte wants these connectors to remain clean and safe while not in use.
The back side of the video card is characteristically void of interesting features. It is mostly home to few stickers, certification labels, and assorted small surface mounted electronic components. On the business end, the Gigabyte GeForce 8600 GT Silent features a pair of dual-link DVI-I connectors and an HDTV output port and fully supports HDCP and Windows Vista. This video card's model label is located on the front-side of the video card, between the cooling device and the PCI-Express slot contacts.
The star of the bundle, of course, is the inclusion of the full version of Gas Powered Games' Supreme Commander, a strategy game by Chris Taylor, on DVD. It is a monstrously popular game, and is far more demanding of the CPU than of the GPU. Apart from the game, the bundle is your standard fare. There is a driver CD, an HDTV connector dongle, and a pair of DVI to VGA adaptors (both complete with plastic protective covers).
The Silent-Pipe II cooling system on the Gigabyte GeForce 8600 GT Silent is remarkably simple. It consists of a large black heat sink with many fins, and a single heat-pipe. The heat-pipe starts above the GPU itself, and snakes around the underside of the heat-sink, to distribute thermal energy evenly across the heat-sink, and away from the GPU.