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NVIDIA GeForce 8600 GTS/GT Performance Preview April 17, 2007 |
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Summary: With today's introduction of the GeForce 8600 GTS, picking up a shiny new DX10 card has never been easier: the card sells for just $200. See how NVIDIA's latest mainstream GPU compares to previous DX9 cards from AMD and NVIDIA as well as the latest GeForce 8800 GTS card in today's article!
 Introduction | Page:: ( 1 / 19 ) |
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Coming soon to a game near you: DirectX 10
If all goes according to plan, the DirectX 10 gaming era should be kicking off in a matter of months, if not slightly sooner. Upcoming games such as Crysis, Hellgate: London, and World in Conflict are all expected to debut later this year, while some of today’s existing games like Company of Heroes and Flight Simulator X are expected to be patched to take advantage of DX10. In fact, according to NVIDIA, the DX10 patch for Company of Heroes is expected to be released sometime next month.
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Exactly how extensively these games will take advantage of DX10 is anyone’s guess at this point. As we’ve mentioned in the past, game developers could use DX10 to deliver performance optimizations, much like we saw with Far Cry 1.3 a few years back, where Crytek used shader model 2.0b and 3.0 to improve performance; or DX10 could be used by game devs to improve image quality. Far Cry is another excellent example of this, where shader model 3.0 was used to bring HDR lighting to GeForce, and later, Radeon X1K cards.
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It’s also possible that game devs could use DX10 to deliver both performance improvements and better image quality.
If you recall, we discussed this with Epic’s Tim Sweeney back in October in our DirectX 10 Preview: The Future of PC Graphics and Gaming article. In that article Tim said: “Unreal Engine 3 will make full use of DirectX 10, and many of our and our partners' games will ship in 2007 with full support for DirectX 10 and Windows Vista. But, despite the marketing hype, DirectX 10 isn't all that different from DirectX 9, so you'll mainly see performance benefits on DirectX 10 rather than striking visual differences.”
Based on that quote, it sounds like Epic’s early efforts will be focused more on improving performance thanks to DX10, rather than improving image quality (IQ). Of course, thanks to the improved performance provided by DX10, DX10 gamers could in theory then improve IQ by running at a higher AA level or screen resolution while still getting a good frame rate. The DX9 user would be forced to run at lower IQ settings. But visually in an Unreal Engine 3 game like Unreal Tournament 3 at least, it sounds like the game is going to look the same whether you’re running in DX9 or DX10, only the DX10 version will run a little faster.
The GeForce 8600: DX10 hardware for the masses
With DX10 games right around the corner, gamers looking to upgrade for these games haven’t had many options, particularly if you’re on a budget. The only real semi-inexpensive option up to this point has been the GeForce 8800 GTS 320MB, but with a $300 MSRP, it’s not exactly what many would call an economical upgrade. The real sweet spot of the mainstream segment is the $150-$200 price point.
To service this market, NVIDIA has developed a new line of GPUs: the GeForce 8600 and GeForce 8500, which are based on NVIDIA’s new G84 and G86 graphics cores. NVIDIA has incorporated many of the key technologies already found in GeForce 8800 into the GeForce 8600 and GeForce 8500, only they’ve been tweaked to be cheaper to produce. In fact, thanks to a tweaked video processing engine which offloads more fuctions, the new GPUs reduce CPU utilization for H.264 movies, allowing them to play back Blu-ray and HD-DVD movies without needing a high-end CPU.
| New architecture | Page:: ( 2 / 19 ) |
As we just mentioned, the new GeForce GPUs are fundamentally built on the same basic architecture already found today in the GeForce 8800 family, the only difference is that the new GeForce GPUs have been modified in order to be cheaper to produce. For instance, the G84 GPU used in the GeForce 8600 contains less than half the number of transistors as the G80 GPU used in the GeForce 8800s: just 289 million in G84 versus 681 million in G80. To further reduce production costs, the new GPUs are also built on TSMC’s smaller 80-nm manufacturing process.
Because these new GPUs are based on the same architecture as GeForce 8800, all of the key innovations found in G80 are also present in G84. NVIDIA relies on the same unified shading architecture with stream processors that run independent of the rest of the graphics core, and G84 continues to support NVIDIA’s Lumenex AA engine. Let’s look over the specs:
The GeForce 8600s
| GeForce 8600 GT/GTS Specifications | ||
| GeForce 8600 GTS | GeForce 8600 GT | |
| GPU | G84 | G84 |
| Core Clock | 675MHz | 540MHz |
| Shader Clock (Stream Processors) | 1.45GHz | 1.19GHz |
| # of Stream Processors | 32 | 32 |
| Memory Clock Speed | 1.0GHz | 700MHz |
| Memory Interface | 128-bit | 128-bit |
| Memory Bandwidth | 32GB/sec | 22.4GB/sec |
| Memory Size | 256MB | 256MB |
| Texture Fill-Rate | 10.8 Gigatexels/sec | 8.6 Gigatexels/sec |
| HDCP Support | Yes | Optional |
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As you can see, the biggest difference between the GeForce 8600 GTS and the GT lies in clock speeds, with the shaders on the 8600 GTS running nearly 300MHz faster than the GeForce 8600 GTS at 1.45GHz, while the GTS graphics core itself is 135MHz higher. With the higher speeds come higher power and cooling requirements and thus the GeForce 8600 GTS requires an external power connection. According to NVIDIA the GeForce 8600 GTS board draws up to 71 watts of power, while the GeForce 8600 GT has a maximum power draw of just 43 watts.
As you can see in the shots of the GeForce 8600 GTS reference board, the GTS also requires beefier cooling. Fortunately we can report that the GeForce 8600 GTS reference cooler ran quietly in our testing: NVIDIA equips the board with a variable speed fan but even under load when overclocking, the board’s fan never ran at max speed other than during system bootup.
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In terms of pricing, the GeForce 8600 GTS carries an MSRP of $199-$229, while the GeForce 8600 GT retails for $149-$159. Both cards ship with two dual-link DVI connectors as well as video-out (S-Video out is supported natively, while component out is provided via dongle).HDCP support is a requirement for all GeForce 8600 GTS cards, regardless of manufacturer, while HDCP support is an optional feature for the GeForce 8600 GT that NVIDIA leaves to their individual board partners.
GeForce 8500 GT
| GeForce 8500 GT Specifications | |
| Stream Processors | 16 |
| Core Clock Speed | 450MHz |
| Shader Clock Speed | 900MHz |
| Memory Clock Speed | 400MHz |
| Memory Amount | 512MB or 256MB DDR2 |
| Memory Interface | 128-bit |
| Memory Bandwidth | 12.8GB/sec |
| Texture Fill-Rate | 3.6 Gigatexels/sec |
| HDCP | Optional |
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Carrying a price tag in the $89-$129 range, the GeForce 8500 GT is the cost-reduced version of the GeForce 8600. It’s based on NVIDIA’s G86 GPU, shipping with slower clock speeds and with half the number of stream processors. This particular change reduces transistor count down to just 210 million. We don’t have one of these boards available for review today, but we will be taking a closer look at it once samples are available.
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| The GeForce 8600 GTS/GT cards | Page:: ( 3 / 19 ) |
Just prior to today’s launch we received a handful of retail GeForce 8600 GTS cards from NVIDIA’s board partners.
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ASUS’ EN8600 GTS TOP arrived first. Being a “TOP” board, the card of course comes overclocked from the factory by ASUS. ASUS didn’t slack around with the board’s speeds either, opting to clock the EN8600 GTS TOP at a whopping 745MHz on the GPU, while the stream processors run at 1,620MHz. That’s an improvement of 70MHz on the graphics core, and 170MHz on the shaders. But ASUS doesn’t stop there, choosing to overclock the memory to 1145MHz (2290MHz effective). This change nets the ASUS board an additional 4.6GB/sec of peak memory bandwidth.
As you can see, ASUS’ EN8600 GTS TOP is an exact replica of NVIDIA’s reference board design for the GeForce 8600 GTS, but this practice of using the reference design for the first wave of cards when a new GPU is announced is pretty common, as it allows NVIDIA’s board partners to get their cards to market quicker. ASUS does spice the package up however by including a copy of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. inside the card’s packaging.
The second card we received came from XFX, represented with their GeForce 8600 GTS XXX Edition.
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Like ASUS, XFX relies on NVIDIA’s reference board design, and also like ASUS, XFX overclocks their board from the factory, opting for clock speeds of 1566MHz for the shaders (stream processors) and 730MHz for the GPU. Finally, the board’s memory is clocked at 1130MHz.
For added cooling, one feature XFX has added to many of their higher-end SKUs like the XXX is their unique aluminum plate, which rests at the top of the card. The plate acts like a heatsink, helping to transfer heat from the board’s PCB to the plate, where it can then be dispersed by nearby cool air from a system fan. This helps to keep overall board temperatures down.
Whereas in the past XFX has provided five or more SKUs for a given NVIDIA GPU, this time around XFX plans to keep it simple, offering three distinct SKUs: a basic card, that relies entirely on NVIDIA’s reference board design and runs at the stock NVIDIA speeds, a midrange “Extreme” card, which is mildly overclocked for added performance (in the case of the XFX 8600 GTS Extreme, the card runs at 720MHz core/1566MHz shaders/1090MHz memory).
Coinciding with today’s GeForce 8600 launch, XFX is also announcing a revised warranty policy. From today forward, XFX’s double lifetime warranty will also cover cards that have been modified with aftermarket coolers, provided the card wasn’t physically damaged in the process. Previously XFX voided the warranty if the card was modded. This new policy includes all GeForce 6 and higher cards, so it’s pretty comprehensive.
The most recent GeForce 8600 GTS card we’ve received comes from EVGA, with the card being their e-GeForce 8600 GTS Superclocked.
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As its name implies, the Superclocked board runs at speeds higher than stock, with EVGA overclocking the board to 721MHz core/1560MHz shaders and 1050MHz on the memory.
The e-GeForce 8600 GTS Superclocked continues to carry EVGA’s lifetime warranty, which also covers cards that have been modded with aftermarket cooling. As long as the end user registers their card with EVGA and doesn’t physically damage the card or its components, EVGA’s lifetime warranty is valid. Besides the warranty coverage, another reason why EVGA’s cards have proven so popular among enthusiasts is EVGA’s unique Step Up program, which allows EVGA card owners to upgrade their graphics card as long as it occurs within 90 days of the initial card purchase.
The final card we’re taking a look at today is XFX’s GeForce 8600 GT card, the XFX GeForce 8600 GT XXX.
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This board uses a slightly different cooler than the reference GeForce 8600 GT card, as you can see it’s cooler looks similar to the heatsink/fan unit used on GeForce 6600 GT cards way back in the days. You also can’t miss XFX’s black PCB and fluorescent green DVI connectors, which have been featured on a number of their cards lately.
The XFX GeForce 8600 GT is clocked at 620MHz core/800MHz memory. While its stream processors run at 1355MHz.
While today’s cards are closely based on NVIDIA’s reference design and cooling, already we’ve received word that Gigabyte will be integrating the second generation of their Silent Pipe technology into their GeForce 8500/8600 lines. The GPUs will be cooled entirely with heat pipes, generating no noise in the process. In addition, the cards will be bundled with the RTS Supreme Commander.
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We’ll definitely be eager to see how these cards unique coolers perform when they debut later this month.
| Test Systems | Page:: ( 4 / 19 ) |
System Setup
Intel Core 2 Duo E6700
EVGA nForce 680i SLI motherboard
ASUS P5W DH Deluxe (for ATI cards)
2GB Corsair TWIN2X2048-6400C4
ATI Radeon X1650 XT
ATI Radeon X1950 Pro
Sapphire Radeon X1950 GT
Catalyst 7.3
NVIDIA GeForce 7900 GS
NVIDIA GeForce 7950 GT
NVIDIA GeForce 7600 GS
NVIDIA GeForce 7600 GT
ForceWare 93.71
NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTS 320MB
ForceWare 97.94
ASUS EN8600 GTS TOP
EVGA e-GeForce 8600 GTS Superclocked
XFX GeForce 8600 GT XXX
XFX GeForce 8600 GTS XXX
ForceWare 158.14
300GB Western Digital Caviar SE
Windows XP Professional SP2
Benchmarks
Company of Heroes 1.3
F.E.A.R. 1.08
Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
Battlefield 2142 1.10
Call of Duty 2 1.3
Half-Life 2 Lost Coast
Quake 4 1.3
| 3DMark 06 | Page:: ( 5 / 19 ) |
3DMark 06 – Direct3D
| Battlefield 2142 | Page:: ( 6 / 19 ) |
Battlefield 2 – Direct3D
| Battlefield 2142 Performance 1600x1200 | ||
| Card | Min FPS | Max FPS |
| GeForce 7900 GS | 21 | 32 |
| GeForce 7950 GT | 29 | 41 |
| GeForce 7600 GT | 15 | 21 |
| GeForce 7600 GS | 9 | 13 |
| ASUS EN8600 GTS TOP | 30 | 44 |
| Radeon X1950 GT | 29 | 41 |
| XFX GeForce 8600 GTS XXX | 30 | 44 |
| EVGA e-GeForce 8600 GTS SC | 29 | 40 |
| XFX GeForce 8600 GT XXX | 25 | 35 |
| Radeon X1650 XT | 22 | 30 |
| Radeon X1950 Pro | 33 | 47 |
| GeForce 8800 GTS 320MB | 58 | 77 |
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| F.E.A.R. Performance | Page:: ( 7 / 19 ) |
F.E.A.R. – Direct3D
| FEAR Performance 1600x1200x32 | ||
| Card | Min FPS | Max FPS |
| GeForce 7900 GS | 23 | 89 |
| GeForce 7950 GT | 31 | 113 |
| GeForce 7600 GT | 17 | 64 |
| GeForce 7600 GS | 10 | 39 |
| ASUS EN8600 GTS TOP | 24 | 84 |
| Radeon X1950 GT | 24 | 102 |
| XFX GeForce 8600 GTS XXX | 24 | 82 |
| EVGA e-GeForce 8600 GTS SC | 23 | 79 |
| XFX GeForce 8600 GT XXX | 20 | 66 |
| Radeon X1650 XT | 17 | 72 |
| Radeon X1950 Pro | 27 | 118 |
| GeForce 8800 GTS 320MB | 42 | 151 |
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| Oblivion Mountains HDR | Page:: ( 8 / 19 ) |
Oblivion – Direct3D
| Oblivion Performance 1600x1200 | ||
| Card | Min FPS | Max FPS |
| GeForce 7900 GS | 16 | 32 |
| GeForce 7950 GT | 22 | 42 |
| GeForce 7600 GT | 12 | 24 |
| GeForce 7600 GS | 8 | 17 |
| ASUS EN8600 GTS TOP | 34 | 60 |
| Radeon X1950 GT | 21 | 34 |
| XFX GeForce 8600 GTS XXX | 35 | 57 |
| EVGA e-GeForce 8600 GTS SC | 32 | 54 |
| XFX GeForce 8600 GT XXX | 28 | 47 |
| Radeon X1650 XT | 17 | 26 |
| Radeon X1950 Pro | 25 | 39 |
| GeForce 8800 GTS 320MB | 57 | 92 |
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| Oblivion Foliage HDR | Page:: ( 9 / 19 ) |
Oblivion – Direct3D
| Oblivion Performance 1600x1200x32 | ||
| Card | Min FPS | Max FPS |
| GeForce 7900 GS | 9 | 12 |
| GeForce 7950 GT | 12 | 20 |
| GeForce 7600 GT | 6 | 11 |
| GeForce 7600 GS | 4 | 7 |
| ASUS EN8600 GTS TOP | 20 | 29 |
| Radeon X1950 GT | 17 | 23 |
| XFX GeForce 8600 GTS XXX | 20 | 29 |
| EVGA e-GeForce 8600 GTS SC | 19 | 29 |
| XFX GeForce 8600 GT XXX | 17 | 25 |
| Radeon X1650 XT | 14 | 19 |
| Radeon X1950 Pro | 19 | 26 |
| GeForce 8800 GTS 320MB | 37 | 52 |
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| Call of Duty 2 | Page:: ( 10 / 19 ) |
Call of Duty 2 – Direct3D
| HL2 Lost Coast HDR | Page:: ( 11 / 19 ) |
Half-Life 2 Lost Coast – Direct3D
| Company of Heroes | Page:: ( 12 / 19 ) |
Company of Heroes – Direct3D
| Company of Heroes Performance 1600x1200 | ||
| Card | Min FPS | Max FPS |
| GeForce 7900 GS | 15.7 | 110 |
| GeForce 7950 GT | 22.3 | 137 |
| GeForce 7600 GT | 11.5 | 78 |
| GeForce 7600 GS | 7.6 | 43 |
| ASUS EN8600 GTS TOP | 12 | 90 |
| Radeon X1950 GT | 17.7 | 113 |
| XFX GeForce 8600 GTS XXX | 12 | 88 |
| EVGA e-GeForce 8600 GTS SC | 11.8 | 87 |
| XFX GeForce 8600 GT XXX | 11 | 73 |
| Radeon X1650 XT | 13.1 | 75 |
| Radeon X1950 Pro | 18.4 | 112 |
| GeForce 8800 GTS 320MB | 19 | 158 |
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| Quake 4 | Page:: ( 13 / 19 ) |
Quake 4 – OpenGL
| STALKER | Page:: ( 14 / 19 ) |
STALKER – Direct3D
| STALKER Performance 1600x1200x32 | ||
| Card | Min FPS | Max FPS |
| GeForce 7900 GS | 19 | 34 |
| GeForce 7950 GT | 24 | 45 |
| GeForce 7600 GT | 15 | 25 |
| GeForce 7600 GS | 10 | 16 |
| ASUS EN8600 GTS TOP | 26 | 50 |
| Radeon X1950 GT | 23 | 38 |
| XFX GeForce 8600 GTS XXX | 25 | 49 |
| EVGA e-GeForce 8600 GTS SC | 25 | 48 |
| XFX GeForce 8600 GT XXX | 21 | 42 |
| Radeon X1650 XT | 17 | 26 |
| Radeon X1950 Pro | 26 | 43 |
| GeForce 8800 GTS 320MB | 40 | 89 |
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| Far Cry | Page:: ( 15 / 19 ) |
Far Cry – Direct3D
| Pacific Fighters | Page:: ( 16 / 19 ) |
Pacific Fighters – OpenGL
| SLI Testing | Page:: ( 17 / 19 ) |
| Power consumption/SLI Testing (cont’d) | Page:: ( 18 / 19 ) |
| Conclusion | Page:: ( 19 / 19 ) |
In comparison to its direct predecessor, the GeForce 7600 GT, the GeForce 8600 GTS provides a substantial improvement in performance. Overall the GeForce 8600 GTS cards ran around 30-35% faster than the GeForce 7600 GT, although there were cases such as Half-Life 2 Lost Coast and STALKER where the difference was even greater. Based on these results, the GeForce 8600 GTS clearly looks like a winner.
When comparing its performance to newer sub-$200 mainstream cards like the GeForce 7900 GS and Radeon X1950 Pro however, the results are more mixed. In shader-intensive situations like we find in Oblivion and STALKER the GeForce 8600 GTS is able to pull ahead – in fact it even outperformed the GeForce 7950 GT in our testing with both of these games. But in many of today’s games which aren’t as shader-intensive and hit the memory subsystem harder thanks to our use of high levels of AA, the GeForce 8600 GTS often falls behind, particularly in comparison to the Radeon X1950 Pro. The GeForce 8600 just doesn’t have the memory bandwidth to keep up with the X1950 Pro in these situations.
Based on this, if you’re contemplating upgrading to a GeForce 8600 GT/GTS, or going with an older DX9 card with a 256-bit memory interface, you’re just going to have to decide which is more important to you, the games of today, or the games of tomorrow.
If today’s games are more important to you, then you may want to pick up a Radeon X1950 Pro or GeForce 7900 GS card. These cards are both set to be displaced by the latest DX10 cards from AMD and NVIDIA, so deals on them will be readily available until supply slowly dries up. Also keep in mind that today’s numbers were based on a stock GeForce 7900 GS card – many of the board’s you’ll find at retail are factory overclocked, delivering better performance than the numbers we presented today. Considering this, picking up a 7900 GS or X1950 Pro card may be even more tempting if you can find a nice deal.
And in case you’ve got one of these cards already, we really don’t see any reason to upgrade to a GeForce 8600 GTS unless you really play a lot of STALKER and Oblivion.
Of course, AMD won’t be standing still for much longer, so we really can’t come to any final conclusions on who will ultimately win the DX10 mainstream battle for many more weeks. If you absolutely must buy today, the GeForce 8600 GTS is by default the mainstream card of choice right now, but that’s obviously because it has no direct competitor. That’s supposedly going to change very shortly though so we can’t come to any definitive conclusions until then. What we can say however is that the GeForce 8600 GTS and 8600 GT are clearly a nice step in the right direction for NVIDIA, but we can’t quite tell if they’ve delivered another bestseller at the mainstream price point just yet with the GeForce 8600 GTS and GT. We honestly wouldn’t be surprised if NVIDIA has more performance optimizations up their sleeves with newer drivers either.
But with its solid feature set, including an improved video engine (dedicated article coming shortly), DX10 functionality, and good performance in today’s DX9 games, there’s a lot to like in NVIDIA’s latest mainstream GPU. It isn't the knockout punch many were expecting, but it remains to be seen if AMD will be able to exploit this with their upcoming DX10 card. We'll just have to wait and see how it all plays out over the coming weeks.