It makes a huge difference. With the 2400XT with all settings on low and 1440 x 900 i got a predictable 39fps give or take 2~3 fps either way. Now at the same res I'm getting 60ish FPS with all on high and no AA. With 2 x AA I get a hit somewhere between 5 and 10fps.

Plus there are more overclocking opportunities with the MSI board, I've been playing with it, I've already bumped the GPU clock to 666Mhz and the memory clock to 833Mhz with no adverse effects on temp (thus far). I should be able to use AA and still retain 60FPS I reckon.

The 8600GT is around the equivalent of a 3650 (also the 2600XT) from ATI (according to a comp table made by Sapphire who only make ATI boards).

**EDIT** got the mem and core clock values wrong way round

The 8600 gt was marketed against the 2400 xt - 2600 pro with the 2600 doing better the 2400 doing worse, and the 8600 gts was the 2600 xt equivelent, my guess is you needed to get new ati drivers, or fidle around with CCC making sure you didnt have some of them settings set to stupid things like Custom AF on it supports and so on, and overclocking is more based on the chip and fan you have on it.

666 mhz on you memery clock seems very slow from what i know, and 866 is very and i mean very high for a nvidia card, even the 8800 ultra was at 700 or something and they are based on the same archtecture, and looking it up 540 is the standard clock, and 800 for the memoery clock standard.

I think that it would probaly run better at stock speeds as that core temp will probaly burn it out or something, whether it says the temps are fine adn you cant have AA on as with lower memory speeds you will get real slowdowns hanging etc as there wont be enough available bandwith.


I realy dont see how youve got such a boost in graphics performance with such a minor upgrade with the source engine which runs mainly of the cpu anyways, i can swap my gprahics cards in and out and not get a drop in fps like i said from a 6600 nvidia to a 2600 ati.

Oh and the 8600 will never run AA i dont think no matter the overclock, if you only get 5- 10 fps with it on std clocks, as its not really built for it, it doesent have the raw power from the core to do so, and would never be able to apply it due to the slow speeds your memory clocks are at

What program did you use to overclock the card anyways ?

I'm using MSI's own Dual Core Centre for overclock and temp measurement.

At idle core temp is 55'C, in game its 72'C. Nothing wierd has happened yet, I'll watch it though, don't want to burn it out.

I installed the same card 3furies has, I got a significant performance boost. With my old x1300 I was barely getting 15fps in Bioshock, now it runs very smoothly on high

Now I can actually play all the games I gave up on (as they were so slow) at reasonable framerates eg Bioshock, COD4, Prey. Only thing is, the box says its 256mb whereas the computer says its 512mb.

Glad it's working out for you. I'll have to check the RAM on mine now you've said that!

Top find all in all I'd say!

cant be sure what my stockspeeds are but i'll post em up Ares but think mine was over 700 at stock. But then i guess they factory OC'd but it should give an idea.

Resurrecting this old thread, but it's bloody typical!

After all the searching for a decent alternative, Galaxy are finally selling the 9600GT low profile version in the UK!

Best supplier I've found for this card is here

Cost is £78.00
part code GRGAL-9600GT-LP

Seriously considering getting this now, even though I just threw £40 at the 8600. Grrrr.

Twice as much memory as the 8600 (512Mb), loads more memory bandwidth (256bit @ 1800Mhz vs 128Bit @ 800Mhz), and 650Mhz core clock vs 540 on the 8600.

What do the Gfx geeks reckon, worth going for?

Dangit!

tell me about it!

Alright then