Gigabyte GeForce 8600GTS 256MB

Back in July we looked at the Gigabyte GeForce 8600GT graphics card. This midrange GeForce 8 series graphics card came equipped with Gigabyte's Silent-Pipe II cooler, which made for a fan-free experience, while still managing to overclock quite well. In this review today we are looking at its bigger brother, which is the Gigabyte 8600GTS. In addition to using the slightly faster G86 core, the GV-NX86S256H utilizes the Silent-Pipe III cooler. Gigabyte's Silent-Pipe III is much larger than its predecessor while using two large heatpipes.

Features:

· Powered by NVIDIA GeForce 8600 GTS GPU
· Supports PCI Express
· Microsoft DirectX 10 and OpenGL 2.0 support
· 256MB GDDR3 memory, 128-bit memory interface
· Supports SLI and PureVideo technology
· Features dual DVI-I / D-sub (by adapter) / HDTV
· Supports Dual Dual-link @ high resolution up to dual 2560x1600

Contents:

Like the Gigabyte 8600GT we previously reviewed, the 8600GTS had also shipped with a copy of Chris Taylor's Supreme Commander game. To most Linux users, this game will just be a wasted disk until the point where it's well supported by WINE. Also included with the GV-NX86S256H graphics card was the video adapter, two DVI to VGA dongles, Gigabyte's user manual, driver CD, and the quick install guide. The graphics card was well protected by Styrofoam during shipping and everything had arrived safely.