NVIDIA 8600, 8500 reviewed!: Anandtech

[Babrbarossa]

Here's to Anandtech for honest reviews!

"DirectX 10 is here, and NVIDIA has the hardware for it. Much like ATI lead the way into DX9, NVIDIA has taken hold of the industry and we can expect to see developers take their DX10 queues from G80 behavior. Hopefully the robust design of DX10 will help avoid the pitfalls we saw in getting DX9 performance even across multiple GPU architectures.

Now that GeForce 8 Series hardware is here, available, and affordable, we have to weigh in on NVIDIA's implementation. While the 8600 GT improves on the performance of its spiritual predecessor the 7600 GT, we don't see significant performance improvement above hardware currently available at the target prices for the new hardware. In NVIDIA's favor, our newest and most shader intensive tests (Oblivion and Rainbow Six: Vegas) paint the 8600 hardware in a more favorable light than older tests that rely less on shader programs and more on texture, z, and color fill rates."


"For users who own 7600 GT, 7900 GS, or X1950 Pro hardware, we can't recommend an upgrade to one of these parts. Even though more performance would be better, those who are still searching for hardware to buy in the $150 - $200 range will certainly not be disappointed with 8600 based graphics. These cards aren't quite the silver bullet NVIDIA had with the 6600 series, but DX10 and great video processing are nothing to sneeze at. The features the 8600 series support do add quite a bit of value where pure framerate may be lacking.

These cards are a good fit for users who have a 1280x1024 panel, though some of the newer games may need to have a couple settings turned down from the max to run smoothly. At the same time, NVIDIA hasn't won the battle yet, as AMD has yet to unveil their DX10 class hardware. With performance that's just on par with the price points NVIDIA set, they've left themselves a little open this time around. We'll have to wait and see if AMD can capitalize."

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[SKYMTL]

Poor Nvidia....

Those 8600GTS cards get slapped around pretty bad by anything but a X1650Pro and 7600GT.

[Beermaster]

That is pretty sad, that the only real jump we are seeing in performace still is the 8800 series, and really for the low end 8800's its not that much

Being a ATI (AMD) fan, i am really disapointed that we still have not seen a answer to the 8800's

[BALISTX]

I'm really disappointed.