Overheating, Overclocking Frenzy

The nVidia 8600 GT is the cheapest , and one of the best selling high performance cards on the market. It has been described as "the best bang for your buck" graphics card, however this legacy is about to come to an end. The 9600 GT has specs that are very close to the 8800 GT but at a much lower price. But, with the new Geforce 200 series coming out, will people be skipping the 9600 GT and going straight for the 200 series equivalent?

After 10 months of hardcore gaming, my XFX 8600 GT is still doing very well. In an earlier blog I mentioned that GRID was causing heat problems with the card, but that is the only problem I have really had. Bioshock has also caused artifacts to appear after 3 hours of play at full settings, but that was fixed with an extra case fan. Over clocking, however is not a good idea. For a card that is already very hot, over clocking will just mess up your system.

The performance of the 8600 GT is good enough to keep up with most new games, but it will soon become heavily out-dated. The new nVidia PhysX drivers are rumoured not to support the 8600 GT, which means the card will not be able to keep up with new games that come with full PhysX features.

Final Thought Byte : So what does that mean for those of us who bought the 8600 GT for gaming? It means that we'll probably have to wait till the new year deals to pick up a cheap 9600 GT, or a new 200 series card. But, if you're looking for something to keep you going till then, you can pick up a 8600 GT for about 50 quid.

Tags : 200 series, 9600 GT, Bioshock, Computer, games, Nvidia 8600 GT, PhysX, Race Driver : Grid