Results

First is was the synthetic tests:

Then HL2 and X3 to test the effects of Anti Aliasing and Anistropic filtering on the card.

Then we used FEAR to test the effects of resolution changes and how the card deals with a higher resolution with AA and AF enabled.

Lost Planet is used as a more modern version of the previous tests. It stresses games far more then FEAR, HL2 and X3 and we use it to test not only the effects of AA and AF, but those of using a higher resolution too.

As you can see, although the 8600GT is able to just about run with full AA and AF at 1280*1024, there is no way you are playing Lost Planet at 1600*1200 with those settings enabled.

Cost

The Fatal1!1!ty 8600GT comes in at £95 which is a full 10 to 15 pounds more than a "standard" 8600GT from the same company.

Noise and Cooling

Noise wise the 8600 is obviously, nice and quiet due to its passive cooling.

Temperatures wise, the card idles at 63 degrees C and loads at 86. This is getting pretty hot, even for a GPU and I am a bit surprised that the aftermarket nature of the cooler didn't perform better than this. Perhaps it needs more rear fins.

When overclocked it hit a maximum of 90 degrees C under load which was undoubtedly the limiting factor in the OC. Active cooling would be a must for any more than what I achieved.