Galaxy 8600GT OC Get our reviews RSS feed here  |
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Author: Whoopty | ||
| Posted: 23:00, June 27th 2007 | |||
| Link: http://www.tc24.co.uk/galaxy | |||
| Score: 9 out of 10 [?] | |||
| Price: £90 | |||
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Review Product Close Up
The card itself has a blue PCB which is nice to see as it simply looks a lot better than the standard green affair that some nVidia cards suffer from.
 "Galaxy 8600GT")
Click to enlarge
One of the first things you notice about this card is it's size; it's tiny! Below is a picture of it compared to a 6600GT from Leadtek. As you can see, the 8600GT is about half an inch smaller than this already quite tiny card. This GPU should be excellent for shuttle PCs.
 "8600GT 6600GT Compare")
Click to enlarge
The 8600GT features a petal style cooler with a centralized fan that draws air in and blows it over a heatsink (or vice versa) that sits around the fan in an almost complete circle. Incidentally, this cooler is not all Galaxy; the fan is made by Coolermaster
 "8600GT Cooler")
Click to enlarge
One difference this cooler has over other petal style coolers is that it has a plastic shroud to make sure air is directed by the fan straight over the fins of the heatsink; this should aid cooling of the card.
 "Plastic Shroud")
Click to enlarge
A lot of aftermarket coolers on GPUs require their own power source from a 4pin molex or 3pin fan header. This can be quite annoying for anyone, but especially those trying to have a tidy looking case or those simply wanting better airflow through careful cable management. Fortunately, Galaxy have thought of this and have simply powered the cooler from a 2pin header on the card itself.
 "Galaxy 8600GT 2pin")
Click to enlarge
The back end of the card has a single DVI and a single VGA connector which seems strange as twin DVI ports and a converter or two is usually the order of the day. Obviously Galaxy assumes that those buying this card might have older monitors with VGA connectors.
 "DVI and VGA")
Click to enlarge
At the front end there is the SLI bridge connector which allows for two of these cards to be connected together for extra performance. Unlike the higher end 8 series cards, this one only has a single connector, suggesting this card will not be compatible with nVidia's future plans for tri-SLI.
 "Insert Title")
Click to enlarge
The back of the 8600 shows that the cooler is held on with 4 very flushed screws which is nice to see, as that means this card has a true, single slot cooler.
 "SLI Bridge Connector")
Click to enlarge
Buy now
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