Noise and Cooling

Cooling wise, while overclocked and at full load the 8600 never went above 60 degrees C which is pretty impressive considering the hefty clocks this card was running. However, temperatures like these often come at a price and this situation is no different. The fan on the cooler is pretty darn loud. Not so much that you'll be topping yourself to stop the humming, but it would be completely unacceptable in silent PCs and would annoy most gamers that weren't using headphones. The card itself also produced a slight humming sound under load which is also quite irritating.

I understand the need for good cooling on a card that is pre-overclocked, but a quieter fan could have been used, surely?

DX10 Support

Even 5 months after Vista's release, there is still little call for DX10 compatible hardware as there is so little that supports it. Company of Heroes is the only game that supports it (as far as I am aware). Until more games come out that support this technology, its nothing to get exciting. Don't get me wrong, it's always nice to have extra features - especially future proofing ones - but its not going to be one that changes your gaming experience any time soon.

Cost

At the time of writing this card can be found for between £85 and £95 which is £15 to £20 cheaper than the 256mb x1950 Pro. Compared to other 8600GT cards, this one from Galaxy is priced quite competitively but there are cheaper ones out there.