We had a scoot around the 8600 series in May, now it's the turn of XFX's impressive looking Fatal1ty Edition card

Have a look-see

Nice review Kemp. Impressed, it put up a nice fight.

Excellent review as expected Kemp.

It`s a decent performer, and gives u the cooling benefits, if that`s the solution u`r after. @ ~ £111, I don`t think u can go that wrong tbh, cards in that bracket are only give or take a small sum.

The packaging does seem disappointing. Package clutter doesn`t cost the company anything at all, and promo stuff especially. Infact the XFX 7600GT 580m is packaged a whole lot better and is obviously an older card.

What impresses me most is the clocking of the Foxconn GTS card - but that detracts from the topic I guess >.<

If XFX are fishing for some impressive feedback, the backplane slot needs a bit of `tarting up`. Something as simple as XFX 8600 GT Fatal1ty in a green raised stamping on their black background would not only promote the card visually, but further seperate it from the mainstream. From the back as it stands, it looks like a regular XFX -anything- card.

Another thing, people will be put off with the likes of the 3DMark scores - that`s a shame. It`s not enough to dismiss the card imo, when it performs obviously better in `the real world`.

(oh and correct the reference to an 8700 on page 4, I got overly excited when I saw that)

Nice review!

The clocks on that thing seem to be huge compared to stock, I'm suprised it can pull it off as much as it does being passive.

I know, it's a pretty good job

@Rast - the foxconn OC's more as it is a stock-clocked card. People generally would rather buy the fastest out there but the small enthusiast overclocking segment would (and should) buy the cheapest and OC that

Still a nice cooler like this one gives you a great reason to buy the card

Nice too see a product baring his name that isnt cack or really expensive

Idk, the keyboard is nicely priced, and you can get the mouse for $20 on Ebay. Before i broke mine i thought it was an excelent mouse.

I would have to say though that i see a flaw on page 2 Kemp. The cooler looks like a modified version of the one i have and if thats true the memory is not cooled at all.

Well considering that we never see a 'heatsink off' image in the review, I don't know. But I'd like to speculate that the heatsink blades on either side of the Fatal1ty logo are there for cooling the memory.

http://upload.overclock3d.net/get.php?id=3180

Edit: Well yes it is actually cooled according to the image.

Yep the memory is cooled, can you see any IC's bare in the pics?? No

That`s a very simplistic hs when u see it like that.

anyone happen to know how wide this card is as am looking it to put into a Lian Li PC-V600

Nice card all thought those 2 heatpipes that connect to nothing are useless, stupid engineers who know nothing of thermodynamics.

One thing I am not sure about is this.

The 8600GT has two Dual Link DVI ports for output as well as an S-Video out. It's at this point I will remind you that no HDTV connection is included, which is a shame. Having said that, the DVI ports are both HDCP enabled so you should be good to go if you want to connect to your HDCP enabled HDTV...if it has DVI-in.

If the card has HDCP, wouldn't a simple adapter cable allow it to be fully compatible with HDMI televisions?

Yes, but it isn't included, which was my point

Kempez could you take a few measurements

Umm sure, which way? Has to be quick, tis going back 2moz

from within the yelow markers please

http://img526.imageshack.us/img526/5...401104lfe9.jpg

thanks

Thats about 140mm

thanks bud

Until las night i was gonna go for the XFX 8600 GT XXX but after reading the review (normaly skip to conclusion magazine or ezine but not this one)

Its left me with a dilema now I will Watercool GPU(s) in the not too distant future, once i get my feet wet.Would it be worth Going SLi on this then liquid cool eventualy OC?

Since i've been reading the forums i am gettin more tempted (its taken me 10 years to put a multimeter on my PSU)

My current setup is 2 year old being on benifit its hard to keep up but OC'ing will help.Or would i be better off spending the same £ on One card? I Have more questions but i'll limit them

As usual an awesome review MR Kemp!

And isn't that card very very pretty!

Edit: Well yes it is actually cooled according to the image.

Hah! Must be nice, considering i have a bigger one on my video card and my memory is not being cooled at all.

Ye like I said, it's a pretty well designed cooler

Mine is to, cept i dont have memory coolers!! *Curses at XFX for beign so good yet so bad*

I'm just going round in circles i've been trying to find the answers myself http://forum.overclock3d.net/showpost.php?p=152323&postcount=19

XFX Fatal1ty 8600 GT Potential for more oc'ing with liquid

v

XFX 8600 GTS XXX Massivly oc'd already.

I'd appreciate some input i'm lookin to spend £250 on 2xSLI or One card

Cheers.

For one thing: SLI isn't worth it, save your money and get a decent single card.

As for choice between the two - they're clocked the same, but if you're watercooling you may as well get the cheapest

Ya for the price of 2 x 8600GT, I`d rather 1 x 8800 tbh.

But for a selfish reason, I`d like to see how the 2 x 8600 get on >.<

Plus, you can always throw another one in if it gets to that point

As others have said, SLI on mid-range cards is deffo not worth it. Just go for the best single card you can.

Only if you have an 8800GTX and a wad of cash burning a hole in your pocket, with absolutely nothing else to buy, should you consider SLI.

Oki I Think ONE monster card will be the plan as MikeEnIke says always got scope to add another later.

I'd be interested too Tom's Hardware hasn't got 8600's on the list either

Cheers p33ps.

Time to hunt for 8800xx http://upload.overclock3d.net/get.php?id=3100&view=1

Ohh just to clarify and correct one thing, the Fatal1ty DOES have the modder friendly warranty.