MSI
is a well known graphics card manufacturer that releases its own design
of Nvidia's/ATI's cards, compared to other manufactures. Recently a
friend of mine decided to build a new game rig with a
reasonable cost and good performance. I suggested him Nvidia's 8600GTS
series and after his search, he bought MSI's proposal. At first
glance, we don't find many differences compared to other 8600GTS
series, apart from the fact that this "baby" comes pre-over clocked in
both GPU and memory. What can you expect from MSI's
NX8600GTS-T2D256E-HD-OC?
NVIDIA® GeForce® 8 series graphics processing units (GPUs) redefine
the PC gaming experience. With a revolutionary unified architecture and
full support for Microsoft® DirectX® 10 games, GeForce 8 series GPUs
deliver unprecedented performance, extraordinarily detailed
environments, and film quality game effects. Below is a table that
illustrates the main differences between the various GeForce 8 series
GPUs:
| |
GeForce
8800 Ultra |
GeForce
8800 GTX |
GeForce
8800 GTS |
GeForce
8600 GTS |
GeForce
8600 GT |
GeForce
8500 GT |
GeForce
8400 GS |
| Core Clock (MHz) |
612 |
575 |
500 |
675 |
540 |
450 |
450 |
| Shader Clock (MHz) |
1500 |
1350 |
1200 |
1450 |
1190 |
900 |
900 |
| Memory Clock (MHz) |
1080 |
900 |
800 |
1000 |
700 |
400 |
400 |
| Memory Amount |
768MB |
768MB |
640MB or
320MB |
256MB |
256MB |
256MB |
256MB |
| Memory Interface |
384-bit |
384-bit |
320-bit |
128-bit |
128-bit |
128-bit |
64-bit |
| Memory Bandwidth (GB/sec) |
103.7 |
86.4 |
64 |
32 |
22.4 |
12.8 |
6.4 |
| Texture Fill Rate (billion/sec) |
39.2 |
36.8 |
24 |
10.8 |
8.64 |
3.6 |
3.6 |
The GeForce 8600 GT and 8600 GTS are essentially the same product, with the only difference being the core and memory clock frequencies.
- MSI NX8600GTS-T2D256E-HD-OC
The
MSI NX8600GTS-T2D256E-HD-OC features 256MB of memory, a core clock of
700MHz and a memory frequency of 2.10GHz, which is slight higher than
what generic 8600GTS cards offer. The retail package has all the
needed logos and users can buy this product at the retail price of 145Euro (+ shipping). MSI offers several different versions of 8600GTS series, each with different features and retail or bulk options.
MSI NX8600GTS-T2D256E-HD-OC comes bundled with the Company Of Heroes real-time strategy (RTS) computer game.
The OC logo on the front indicates that this version is faster than other generic 8600GTS cards:
Unpacking the box contents...
There are many cables inside including DVI to HDMI adaptor and of
course an HDMI cable. This card can be used with the newest LCD
televisions for sure.
Company Of Heroes retail game is included. Yep! The full version!
The card is rated as full sized and will take two slots of your system.
Looking at the side, we can see how big the cooling system is, the
overall board design comes from MSI and is different than other 8600GTS
cards. What's rather also not very pleasant, is that the card is longer
than other 8600GTS cards and this might be an issue with some cases. We
can also see the SLI connector.
The card at the back features two (x2) DVI-D outputs and one TV-out
output. HDCP is supported and you can output HD content to your
TV/monitor.
Despite to the usual 8600GTS, MSI's proposal uses the old molex power connector:
- Full specification
Graphics Engine |
GeForce™ 8600GTS |
Video Memory |
256MB GDDR3 |
Engine Clock |
700MHz |
Memory Clock |
2.00GHz (2x1050MHz DDR3) |
Memory Interface |
256-bit |
Max Resolution |
2048 X 1536 |
Bus Standard |
PCI Express x16 |
HDTV Output |
Yes, S-Video to HDTV Out |
VGA Output |
Yes, With DVI-VGA adaptor |
TV Output |
Yes, S-Video to Composite |
Dual DVI Output |
Yes |
Adapter/Cable Bundled |
2x DVI to VGA adapter
1x HDTV-OUT adaptor
|
Software Bundled |
1x CD-ROM (Company Of Heroes)
1x CD-ROM (Utilities & Driver)
|
