Gainward Bliss 8600 GT PCX Golden Sample GLH Edition 256mb
The card - close up
Published: 21st January 2008 | Source: Gainward | Price: £80 |
The card - close up
The Gainward Bliss 8600 GT PCX Golden Sample "Goes Like Hell" Edition 256mb (catch your breath now) is a nice looking card with a rather attractive red heatsink and red PCB with black trimmings.
Something to note straight away is that this is a dual slot heatsink, which is a little surprising seeing as this card is aimed at media PC's and is designed with an HDMI output.
Certainly an unusual looking card, the small black aluminium heatsink sits below a mesh front. This card is certainly one for those who have a case window, it is very stylish.
As you can see, the heatsink is neatly covered by a black mesh. There are additional sinks for the memory and PWM's which is good to see as well.
Power comes from a single PCI-e 6PIN connecter in the usual place at the end of the cooler.
The standout feature of this card is the HDMI output available. Obviously the DVI and HDMI are equipped with HDCP as well, making this card an ideal compliment to a nice HDTV setup. Again we see that the card takes up a full two slots on the motherboard, which is a bit of a shame.
The Cooler
The cooler on the card is a pretty basic affair, but appears to do the job. Running at 48°C idle and 59°C load I expected it to be worse considering it's not the largest chunk of metal.
The fan on the cooler runs very quiet even when ramped up so it is appropriate for a living room, although a passive cooler would obviously be a better choice. Of course, Gainward do make a passive 8600 GT as well.
The cooler is very basic with a black painted aluminium affair but luckily the 8600 GT chip still manages to keep fairly cool.
Most Recent Comments
last page, "eprformance"
needs editing
otherwise, good review
needs editing
otherwise, good review
Ta, must have missed that
Nice review Matt..
I could be wrong here but when you say the increase of the overall 3DMark 06 results when overclocked is 200... Is it not 1000 ish??
I may well be wrong as I just scanned that part.. Will read in detail a little later.
I could be wrong here but when you say the increase of the overall 3DMark 06 results when overclocked is 200... Is it not 1000 ish??
I may well be wrong as I just scanned that part.. Will read in detail a little later.
6293 to 7272? Looks around 1000 points to me, did I not put 1000? Mebbe not...it was late and i was thinking 1000 ish 
Quote:
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Originally Posted by name='Kempez'
6293 to 7272? Looks around 1000 points to me, did I not put 1000? Mebbe not
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Nice insight.
Certainly gets game spankage off the Ati alt card. Although the 3dmark scores are pretty much how I`d expect them to be.
Now they show this card sporting 3 possible outputs - can it manage that ?
1 BIG dissapointment for me, especially with it having HDMI as a standard connection, is no audio passthrough. MSI seem to have taken the corner of the market with this.
Hard to think the 8600 is about to become a `last generation` card.
Certainly gets game spankage off the Ati alt card. Although the 3dmark scores are pretty much how I`d expect them to be.
Now they show this card sporting 3 possible outputs - can it manage that ?
1 BIG dissapointment for me, especially with it having HDMI as a standard connection, is no audio passthrough. MSI seem to have taken the corner of the market with this.
Hard to think the 8600 is about to become a `last generation` card.
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