Nvidia 8600 GTS

I just put this card into my machine this week, upgrading from an 6800 Ultra. It is a midrange card that cost $240 at Best Buy. This is a sweet card that runs SL really well even with AA turned up to 16x. In areas where I was seeing 30 fps with AA set to 8x (highest the 6800 could go) has me seeing 45 to 60 fps. With default settings I hit near 100fps or so. With AA and AF cranked up the picture quality is amazing. I was rather disappointed when I installed the included drivers, they were rather glitchy but the shiny new drivers from Nvidia this week solved that problem.

Beyond SL, on other major plus for this card is the way it handles H.264 and I assume other video processing as well, the video quality compared to the 6800 is jaw dropping. What was blocky, grainy streaming video is gorgeous with the 8600.

Recommendations: If you can't afford the 8800 series cards and you want to upgrade from a 5xxx or 6xxx series card, this is the one to get if you intend to move to Vista any time soon. From the reviews I've read, the card isn't quite as powerful as say a 7900 GTX but the feature set like H.264 processing and DirectX 10 capability make it a card worth considering. However, if you have a 7600 or better already, this would be more of a lateral move rather than an upgrade and not worth the additional outlay of cash.

So far, thumbs up!

Bump for great justice!

Never install drivers from ANY included CD ROM.

They are out of date and usually fucked up.

LOL.. I bought a new card just a couple of years ago, and the drivers came on a floppy disc.... straight for the bin... internet download.. most aren't worth even sliding it into the slot. A previous card had the drivers/manuals on the CD-Rom, which unless you already had a set of drivers that could show 32bit at a minimum of 1024x768, wouldnt load the menu system to load the drivers , great as I had just built the PC and windows wouldn't recognise the GC or monitor and defaulted to low resolution..... sometimes I wish I could just drop into DOS.....

I use the 7950 GTX card, its like WOW... the differences in SL are amazing.. 100 fps norm, and even off the scale. Its was a bargin from ebay and new.

Lag in SL is only restricting when you are trying to have syncronised sex with your partner.. it's a bit like RL, when someone keeps ringing the front doorbell or the phone won't stop riinging... LOLOL.

Well, I normally don't load the included drivers but the 8600 was so new it didn't have new drivers on the Nvidia page yet so I didn't have much choice. Thankfully the new drivers showed a couple days after so I could update then. Made a big difference. I pity someone buying the 8600 who only has dialup or no internet connection because the included drivers are rife with problems.