ASUS GeForce 8600GT OC Gear 256MB

Conclusion:

Compared to the Gigabyte 8600GT, the ASUS version had run neck-and-neck and was within one frame per second in all of the benchmarks when running at stock speeds. Granted, when overclocking the ASUS EN8600GT, it ran much faster. Keep in mind too that the GeForce 8600GT can be overclocked further than the frequencies we used during benchmarking. At this point for Linux users, since NVIDIA managed to fix their GeForce 8 performance regression, the NVIDIA GeForce 8600GT 256MB is a much better mid-range offering than the ATI Radeon HD 2600PRO. In Enemy Territory: Quake Wars, the GeForce 8600GT was much faster.

The ASUS GeForce 8600GT 256MB offering includes the OC Gear for real-time overclocking, but unfortunately, that device isn't supported under Linux. So until a driver is created, if you pick up this card you may only be able to use it if you dual boot into Windows. However, overclocking through CoolBits can be easily done and you should expect some great overclocking results with this ASUS creation.

Aside from the lack of OC Gear Linux support, this is a great graphics card if you are a budget-minded gamer or just looking to max out the Compiz Fusion effects on your Linux desktop. If you are interested in an ASUS graphics card but not OC Gear, also available is a plain EN8600GT/2DHT/256M that only costs $125 USD and is a $25 savings compared to the OC Gear model.