The Verdict

It's no secret and you know it, I like the GT cards better than the GTS purely based on pricing level.

Over the past weeks (coincidentally with an ATI product release) the prices have dropped a little and the 8600 GT already sells below 150 USD. That's really good. Due to it's design, overclock and cooling the Fatal1ty product is slightly more expensive though.

None the less, you can purchase the product at roughly 170 EUR/USD and quite honestly, the passive cooler alone makes that a worthy purchase. It's already comes pre-overclocked, yet can be clocked even better, also I like the black dark color theme this card has, it makes it stand out from the rest for sure. Combine that with the two years warranty that's a good deal. I do have to say that if you plan to buy it at like 170-180 USD then the GTS becomes an option as well, it will offer roughly the same performance though.

More general speaking, the GT is a product series for those with a 1024x769 or 1280x1024 pixels sized monitor. It'll offer you decent 3D gaming performance and will allow you to enable AA and AF in most situations as well. We have not discussed this in the article obviously the card is a great card for multimedia playback as well. Combine it with the proper playback software or PureVideo and it'll even decode and enhance HD content over the GPU (except for VC-1 !). Disappointing to see is that the card is not HDCP compatible. Aimed at the audience as a full Vista ready product and the fact that we live in 2007 .. I say all current generation mid-range cards should have it.

With the 8600 Series of products comes a DX10 capable product (backwards compatible obviously). This XFX graphics card is offering decent performance up-to a resolution of 1280x1024 in most games which makes it an interesting product for a lot of you on that 170 USD/EUR budget.

Many GeForce 8600 GT models already have been spotted in our pricewatch database, click here to have a browse.

You can't deny that you just have to like this product it'll offer you a nice set of features, performance and value for that kind of money. It's a feast to the eyes with it's beautiful design and you can't hear the card as it's passively cooled. It's a really tight card to own for sure and will offer you a good gaming experience if you own a 1024x768 or 1280x1024 LCD-screen.

Purely for design and silence we will give the card an editor's choice award.

Thanks go out to XFX for providing the sample.

Product:	NVIDIA GeForce 8600 GT Fatal1ty Edition 256MB
Manufacturer:	XFX
Information:	XFX Graphics
MSRP price:	169 USD/EUR

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Oh I just remembered, the one thing that could have been changed is the packaging, much better looking. Fatal-Hilbert.