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GeForce 8600 GTS - Image courtesy BootDaily
GeForce 8600 and 8500 unified shader amounts unveiled

DailyTech has come across more details of NVIDIA’s upcoming GeForce 8600 GTS, 8600 GT and 8500 GT graphics processors. NVIDIA expects to unleash the GeForce 8600 and 8500-series graphics processors later this month. AMD is ready to take on NVIDIA’s midrange offerings with its upcoming ATI Radeon HD2600 and 2400 offerings.

Slotting below NVIDIA’s GeForce 8800 GTS 320MB SKU is the GeForce 8600 GTS. The top end G86-based graphics processor features 32-stream processors clocked at 1.45 GHz. NVIDIA pairs the 32-stream processors with 256MB of GDDR3 memory clocked at 1.0 GHz. A 128-bit memory interface connects the memory to the GPU for 32GB/sec of memory bandwidth.

Sporting lower clock speeds is the GeForce 8600 GT. The GeForce 8600 GT has the same 32-stream processors as the GTS; however, the unified shaders have a 1.18 GHz clock. Core and memory clock are also lower at 540 MHz and 700 MHz, respectively. Memory bandwidth is downgraded to 22.4 GB/sec as a result of the lower memory clocks.

NVIDIA GeForce 8-series
Model
8600 GTS 8600 GT
 8500 GT
8800 GTS
Stream processors
32 32 16 96
Core clock
675 MHz 540 MHz 450 MHz 500 MHz
Shader clock
1.45 GHz
1.18 GHz 900 MHz 1.2 GHz
Memory clock
1.0 GHz 700 MHz 400 MHz 900 MHz
Memory interface
128-bit 128-bit 128-bit 320-bit
Memory bandwidth
32 GB/sec 22.4 GB/sec 12.8 GB/sec 64 GB/sec
Texture fill rate (Billion/sec)
10.8 8.6 3.6 24

Filling in the bottom of the retail GeForce 8-series lineup is the GeForce 8500 GT. The value model has 16-stream processors clocked at 900 MHz – half the amount present on the GeForce 8600-series. NVIDIA pairs the 450 MHz core with DDR2 memory clocked at 400 MHz. The GeForce 8500 GT features the same 128-bit memory interface as the GeForce 8600-series. Memory bandwidth is downgraded to 12.8 GB/sec.

Expect NVIDIA to launch its new midrange product lineup tomorrow.  Additional details are already starting to leak out early, and some brick-and-mortar stores already have the cards on the shelf.

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8600 GTS
By Flunk on 4/16/2007 4:03:03 PM , Rating: 3
Compared to the 8800 GTS' 96 stream processors doesn't 32 see like a bit of a ripoff at the 8600 GTS' price point?




RE: 8600 GTS
By stromgald on 4/16/2007 4:11:02 PM , Rating: 4
True, but these mid-range cards aren't power sucking monsters that take up more space than what some mini towers have room for.


RE: 8600 GTS
By Belard on 4/16/2007 10:39:28 PM , Rating: 2
About the ONLY mini-tower PC the 8800 and other dual-slot-area cards that don't fit into are the Dell minis. Currently models e520/e521.... because of the stupid BTX design (Apparently, Dell is the ONLY BTX manufacture on the market, but at least its industry standard heheh).

8800GTX will fit in the older silver HPs and the new shiny-black HPs - which don't be fooled, they only flipped the motherboard. The CPU is at the bottom, slots are on top. The card will fit just above the Hard Drive bays.

Of course the PSU has to be replaced ;)


RE: 8600 GTS
By jmke on 4/17/2007 3:44:38 AM , Rating: 2
8800GTX doesn't fit in Antec Sonata I/II and other mid-tower cases where the HDD cage blocks the longer VGA card.


RE: 8600 GTS
By shabby on 4/16/2007 6:29:25 PM , Rating: 4
It is a ripoff, the 6600 was basically half of the 6800.
Same with the 7600, half the rops/pipes as the 7800.
Now this 8600 has a 1/4 of stream processors of the 8800, it should also cost a 1/4 of the price if you ask me.
I hope ati comes out with something better in the midrange then what nvidia.


RE: 8600 GTS
By slashbinslashbash on 4/16/2007 9:18:15 PM , Rating: 2
96 / 32 = 3

:)

Also, keep in mind that the GPU is only part of the cost of a video card. All of that high-speed RAM costs money too, as does the PCB, heatsink, etc.


RE: 8600 GTS
By Russell on 4/16/2007 10:00:28 PM , Rating: 2
Obviously they mean 1/4 of the high-end.


RE: 8600 GTS
By slashbinslashbash on 4/17/2007 12:36:33 AM , Rating: 2
Oops! I looked at the GTS numbers and thought they were for GTX.


RE: 8600 GTS
By Belard on 4/16/2007 10:46:11 PM , Rating: 2
Not really quite a rip.

The 6600s were about half the price of the 6800s.
And When I paid $175 for my 7600GT ($25 extra for the Gigabyte heatpipe version) the 7900GT was a $300~350 card.

The sub $200 ($150~175) is the sweet spot. If they provide good performance at that price. ATI lost market share because there mid-range cards were $50~75 too expensive.

But looking at the pricing:

$280 = 8800GTS 320 (They should have called it the "GT")
$400 = 8800GTS 640 (a bit faster)
$550 = 8800GTX 768

If the 8600GTX can equal a 7950GT for $200, it would be a fair price... but we'll see in a day or so.


RE: 8600 GTS
By lplatypus on 4/16/2007 7:43:22 PM , Rating: 2
How well do these stream processors scale? Do three times as many stream processors result in three times the performance?


RE: 8600 GTS
By JarredWalton on 4/16/2007 9:31:15 PM , Rating: 2
I seem to recall seeing some preliminary benches (can't find the link anymore) that showed 8600 GT (possibly GTS) slightly outperforming a 7900 GS. The question thus is: what's the price, and is DX10 performance remotely acceptable? It's a midrange card, but if it costs about $150 that's still good enough for a lot of people. Turn off AA, run at 1680x1050 or less, and you're probably set for a while.


Launch date?
By stromgald on 4/16/2007 4:08:29 PM , Rating: 4
So when are these things launching again? First, we heard a vague April 17 date, then we got this: http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=6616 , which says without pressure from ATI, nVidia was postponing the launch. Then just a few weeks later, we have this posted: http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=6825 , which reiterates and confirms the April 17 launch. Now, dailytech posts another article that infers launch will be in the 'upcoming weeks' instead of tomorrow.

Someone needs to get the facts straight. I need to know for my new HTPC build whether I should be getting a cheap DX9 card now, or hold off a week or two while prices settle and then get a mid-range DX10 card.




RE: Launch date?
By ZetaEpyon on 4/16/2007 4:44:30 PM , Rating: 2
Actually, I was just at the local BestBuy yesterday, and I swear they had an 8600 GTS on the shelf.


RE: Launch date?
By FITCamaro on 4/16/2007 5:31:45 PM , Rating: 1
Yes they did. I am in Charleston, SC and was at Best Buy yesterday. They had several BFG 8600 GTS's on the shelf. I didn't think they'd come out yet. Apparently I was right.

Best Buy is selling a product before the launch date.


RE: Launch date?
By FITCamaro on 4/16/2007 5:32:30 PM , Rating: 1
By yesterday I meant Sunday the 15th btw.


RE: Launch date?
By KristopherKubicki (blog) on 4/16/2007 4:52:00 PM , Rating: 6
That was supposed to read "tomorrow." We had the article sitting in the queue for a while. Hope that clears up any confusion,

Kristopher


RE: Launch date?
By crystal clear on 4/17/2007 4:18:30 AM , Rating: 2
Interview: NVIDIA's Keita Iida
The future of Direct X, Crysis and PS3 under the spotlight.

Keita Iida, Director of Content Management at NVIDIA sat down with IGN AU to discuss all things Direct X 10 and the evolution of their Geforce graphics cards. Iida goes into detail on the differences between developing for the PS3's RSX graphics processor, and the latest development tools to hit the scene.

quote:
Selected portions of the interview-


IGN AU: What are your thoughts on Microsoft effectively forcing gamers to upgrade to Vista in order to run Direct X 10 - when there's no real reason why it can't run on Windows XP?

Keita Iida: It's a business and marketing decision.

IGN AU: Can you comment on what happened with NVIDIA's Vista drivers? You guys have had access to Vista for years to build drivers and at the launch of Vista there were no drivers. The ones that are out now are still basically crippled. Why did this happen?

Keita Iida: On a high level, we had to prioritise. In our case, we have DX9, DX10, multiple APIs, Vista and XP - the driver models are completely different, and the DX9 and 10 drivers are completely different. Then you have single- and multi-card SLI - there are many variables to consider. Given that we were so far ahead with DX10 hardware, we've had to make sure that the drivers, although not necessarily available to a wide degree, or not stable, were good enough from a development standpoint.

If you compare our situation to our competitor's, we have double the variables to consider when we write the drivers; they have much more time to optimise and make sure their drivers work well on their DX10 hardware when it comes out. We've had to balance our priorities between making sure we have proper DX10 feature-supported drivers to facilitate development of DX10 content, but also make sure that the end user will have a good experience on Vista. To some degree, I think that we may have underestimated how many resources were necessary to have a stable Vista driver off the bat. I can assure you and your readers that our first priority right now is not performance, not anything else; it's stability and all the features supported on Vista.

IGN AU: So what kind of timeline are we looking at until the end user can be comfortable with Vista drivers? With DX9 drivers that work as stably and quickly as they do with XP?

Keita Iida: We're ramping up the frequency of our Vista driver releases. Users will probably understand that we release a number of beta drivers on our site, so we're making incremental progress. We believe that, in a very short time we will have addressed the vast majority, if not all of the issues. We've had teams who were working on other projects who have mobilised to make sure that as quickly as possible we have the drivers fixed. I'm not going to give you an exact timeframe, but it's going to be very soon. We're disappointed that we couldn't do it right off the bat, but we hear what everyone is saying and we're willing to fix it.

http://pc.ign.com/articles/780/780314p1.html


RE: Launch date?
By sviola on 4/16/2007 5:40:51 PM , Rating: 2
Newegg already has the 8500 GT available for $98:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8...


RE: Launch date?
By kilkennycat on 4/16/2007 6:48:42 PM , Rating: 2
Apparently an accidental jump-the-gun listing. Newegg now puts up text apologizing for deactivated the listing. Expect a shower of listings on Newegg tomorrow.


question
By yacoub on 4/16/2007 4:02:54 PM , Rating: 5
Can you post the 8800GTS 320MB's specs next to those so we can get a better idea of how they compare? It would make it easier to figure out which aspect of the 8600GTS is what has limited its ability to compete at an appropriate level for its marketing slot.




RE: question
By darkblueslider on 4/16/2007 5:20:36 PM , Rating: 2
That's a really good idea actually.


RE: question
By ogreslayer on 4/16/2007 5:41:35 PM , Rating: 2
96 Stream Processors
500mhz Core Clock 1200mhz Shader Clock
800mhz Memory Clock
64GBps Memory Bandwidth
320-bit Memory Interface
24 billion texels per second


RE: question
By BladeVenom on 4/16/2007 5:35:35 PM , Rating: 4
...................GeForce 8800GTX GeForce 8800GTS
Stream Processors.......128.........96
Core Clock (MHz)..........575.........500
Shader Clock (MHz)......1350........1200
Memory Clock (MHz)......900.........800
Memory Amount...........768MB.......640MB or 320MB
Memory Interface.........384-bit.....320-bit
Memory Bandwidth(GB/sec).86.4.......64
Fill Rate(billion/sec)....36.8.......24


hmmm
By TheWizardofOz on 4/16/2007 5:18:15 PM , Rating: 1
The photoshop artist who created that fake 86xx/85xx picture needs more practice...

Look at the angle of the PCB vs the angle of HS/F... And the cropped DVI-I connectors as well as PCI-E connector...




RE: hmmm
By Vanilla Thunder on 4/16/2007 5:29:59 PM , Rating: 2
Send your resume' today.


RE: hmmm
By Alpha4 on 4/16/2007 9:00:01 PM , Rating: 2
It looks real to me. The heatsync might not be mounted properly.


RE: hmmm
By JarredWalton on 4/16/2007 9:29:14 PM , Rating: 2
"Look at the angle of the PCB vs. angle of the HSF..."

Yeah, because a 2D photo perfectly conveys angles? Looking at the HSF fins and the caps, it seems about right. No idea what you're talking about with cropped DVI connectors. It may not be a fully functional card pictured, but does it really matter? Without benches, it's just a random picture of a random card.


RE: hmmm
By johnsonx on 4/16/2007 10:22:18 PM , Rating: 2
Looks real to me too, I don't think it's a photochop.


RE: hmmm
By Sh0ckwave on 4/16/2007 11:22:28 PM , Rating: 2
It looks like the picture from the ASUS website of their 8600GT.


I've already got my 8500...
By fanbanlo on 4/16/2007 5:29:50 PM , Rating: 2
ATI Radeon 8500 that is... (DirectX 8!) LOL




By bunnyfubbles on 4/16/2007 5:48:59 PM , Rating: 2
DX8.1 ;P


RE: I've already got my 8500...
By Goty on 4/16/2007 5:56:37 PM , Rating: 2
I don't care what anyone says, that was an awesome card.


By otispunkmeyer on 4/17/2007 4:06:06 AM , Rating: 2
so was the 9500pro
mines still going strong and it clocks way past 350mhz


32 stream procs?
By mm2587 on 4/16/2007 8:13:15 PM , Rating: 5
So this thing has a 128 bit memory interface and 32 stream processors? Is it even going to be able to take on the 7900gs performancewise? I mean mid range cards are always a bit week, but a little over a third of the power of the next price point? These better be dirt cheap or I can't see the 8600gts doing very well. Those who want a cheap card will just pick up the 8500 or the cheaper 8600. and the midrange gamers will either stick with 7 series cards for now, or spend a bit more and get an 8800.




RE: 32 stream procs?
By xsilver on 4/16/2007 9:37:42 PM , Rating: 2
the performance of the 8600gts can be very misleading; most premliminary reviews have shown that on 3dmark 06 the performance is very good; higher than the 7950GT - but in actual games the performance is quite bad, barely equivalent to the 7900GS, which can be had for very cheap these days.

so unless you need the DX10, which is what skews the 3dmark score, its a disappointing card indeed. if only the 8800gts 320mb would drop a little in price, I think most people would be very happy.


hey NV, how about putting out good drivers?
By evident on 4/16/2007 5:32:51 PM , Rating: 2
Instead of releasing more products that have crappy ones? will my 7900gs on vista get overscan correction on my HDTV yet? or is that feature still going to be missing until next year?




By Acanthus on 4/16/2007 11:25:45 PM , Rating: 2
It is my understanding that HDTV support is added by the OEM, not nvidia.


Wow
By slash196 on 4/17/2007 12:12:32 AM , Rating: 2
Nvidia gets ANOTHER product launch in before R600 launches. I hope ATi has some awesome stuff in the wings, because they are struggling.




RE: Wow
By jrb531 on 4/17/2007 12:44:55 PM , Rating: 2
If these 8600 cards are any indicator then ATI can take some more time LOL.

With not a single DX10 game out and adding in teh Vista requirement you have to ask yourself what the rush is.

Nvidia was also first to market for DX9 and I'm sure people who go suckered into buying a 5200/5600/5800 will tell you the fond memories they had of "first to market" DX9 when the DX9 games actually came out.

-JB


Performance
By Rebel44 on 4/16/2007 6:15:22 PM , Rating: 3
8600 is piece of **** for that price. 8800 320MB has much better price/performance and costs only over 250 bucks.




sucks
By OraneBandana on 4/17/2007 12:07:34 AM , Rating: 2
1/4 the no of shaders of the top end card? its like 7600GT with 6 pipelines. I wonder how it could even compete with a 7950GT or equivalent. and the price? too expensive. not good at all. a piece of crap from the nvida this time on the mid range segment. ntg like the legendary 6600gt n its successor.




What about x1950pro?
By xNIBx on 4/17/2007 6:07:28 AM , Rating: 2
I have a feeling that x1950pro will total thrash these cards both performance and value wise unless these cards have some super secret performance which isnt shown by the specs.

x1950pro is probably the best value for money card since 9500pro.




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