Looks and Feel, the GeForce 8600 GTS...

Time to look a bit further and see a bit more details of the Sparkle GeForce 8600 GTS edition, and keeping in mind the reference design by NVIDIA. As we already mentioned Sparkle is just following the default design, tagging it with their own branded sticker. It is a good looking card with outstanding performance that is available for the budget minded buyers. As we have seen on almost all mid-range graphics card we have again a single slot cooling solution, which is good news for those with limited space in their computer chassis. We will actually take a closer look and highlight some of the vital features, and some of the benefits...

The Sparkle version looks sturdy, though light and on top of all it's quite impressive. The actual PCB is for a big part hidden away behind the single slot cooling solution. Peeking out at the bottom we see the PCI Express interface connection. On top of the cooler, or better the white cooling plate displays the Sparkle brand with the big S logo making sure that we all know it is a Sparkle product. The cooler itself is quite small but effective for cooling the underlying G84 graphics core. It does show much resemblance to the cooler used on the high-end GeForce 8800 series, but cut down to a single slot design. This certainly is some good news and shows that NVIDIA is trying to keep their card cool and silent at the time.

The Sparkle version of the GeForce 8600 GTS follows the reference design just like any other. The first version of the GeForce 8600 series all come from the same production and each of the brands puts their own colors and logo on it. These cards are similar to the previous GeForce 7600 series, featuring as usual a smaller cooler than what is used on the high-end segment. Next to the reference cards you will find as well some brands who already have released a pre-overclocked version, and Sparkle did so as well with their Calibre series. This Calibre version comes with a slightly adapted cooling and higher clock speeds. Nonetheless we can't complain about the reference cooler as it is quiet and does an excellent job.

	GeForce 8500 GT	GeForce 8600 GT	GeForce 8600 GTS
Core	450MHz	540MHz	675MHz
Shader	900MHz	1190MHz	1450MHz
Memory	800MHz	1400MHz	2000MHz
Processors	16	32	32

The table shows where you can situate the GeForce 8600 GTS, which is in fact the fastest version next to the GeForce 8500 GT and GeForce 8600 GT accelerators. On top of that, we need to say that the GeForce 8500 GT is build around the G86 chip which is different from the G84 used on the GeForce 8600 series. Meaning that the GeForce 8600 GT and GTS are built around the same graphics processor, the G84 which features 32 stream processors. The only difference between these versions, are the clock speed settings and the actual memory chips used. All GeForce 8 series feature the so called unified shader architecture that is somehow a requirement for DirectX 10 compatibility.

And what about the rear view? Well it doesn't bring any surprises, and does look like most NVIDIA based graphics cards. Plain and simple that's the least you can say about the back side of the video card. In fact there isn't that much to see and therefore becomes less spectacular. However we will try to uncover as much as possible by giving some impressions. All the major components are brought to the front of the card so the back side will only reveal some minor parts like electronic interconnections and resistors. On the PCB we spotted the position of the GPU itself, the G84 chip. This is outlined by the four screws with in the middle quite a lot of small resistors.

And yes located at the top of the board you find the SLI connection. Since NVIDIA has introduced the SLI technology, almost all their graphics card features this extra technology. The SLI connection provides the means to support multi-GPU power. So in essence you can combine the raw processing power of two Sparkle GeForce 8600 GTS accelerators. Of course this SLI connection is not really needed anymore, as the current ForceWare drivers support cable-less multi-GPU operation. But using the SLI hardware connection you get some extra performance which is not possible in cable-less mode. The GeForce 8600 GTS requires some extra power, in addition to the power that is supplied via the PCI Express slot which is common for a higher range of the mid-range graphics cards.