80nm processor technology is used to manufacture the 8600GTS, 8600GT. Both has 32 Stream processors and the 8500GT has 16 Stream processors. The 8600GTS draws a maximum power of 71W, 8600GT at 43W and 8500GT at 40W. The memory width of the 8600GT and 8600GTS is 128bits wide.

The number of transistors on 8600GTS and 8600GT is 289 million while the 8500GT has 210 million transistors.

Shader clk of the 8600GTS is 1450MHz, 8600GT is 1180MHz and 8500GT is 900MHz.

In the next few pages, we will be presenting the benchmarks of the card against various cards based on the same chipset, the 8600GTS, 8600GT, X1950XTX, 7900GT and X1950Pro. Before we take a look at the scoreline, lets take a look at the test environment.

Graphics card tested

• ECS 8600GTS with Forceware 158.16

• Chaintech GSE86GTS-A1 with Forceware 158.16

• Gigabyte GV-NX86T256D with Forceware 158.16

• ATi X1950XTX with Catalyst 6.10

• ASUS EN7900GT with Forceware 91.31

• ASUS EAX1950Pro with Catalyst 6.10

Environment

• Gigabyte GA-965P-DQ6 / Intel INF 8.0.1.1002
• Intel X6800 Extreme Edition processor
• 2 x 1024 MB Corsair CMX1024A-8500C5 (total 2GB)
• Hitachi 7K80 SATAII HDD
• Windows XP SP2