So, you want a DirectX 10 compatible video card that won't break the bank? You don't necessarily need an upper-range card to push pixels in all their screaming goodness? How about a mid-ranged card at a mid-ranged price? There will come a time when DirectX 9.0c is just not enough for the latest games. The MSI GeForce 8600 GTS will allow budget gamers to break into the DirectX 10 gaming era. The version of the card that MSI sent is the GeForce 8600 GTS OC edition. While still working with a 128-bit memory bus and being able to pump up the clock results in a solid card may not be for the hardcore gamer, but it is definitely a card for the rest of us. - nV News

MSI GeForce 8600 GTS OverClocked Edition Review

The reference GeForce 8600 GTS cards have a 675MHz core clock and a 2000MHz memory clock. The MSI GeForce 8600 GTS OC card runs stock at 700MHz core clock and 2100MHz memory clock. This card comes pre-cooked with the overclocking. No reheating necessary. However, if you like yours well-done, you can turn up the clock speed to some unbelievable rates. The card doesn't always work at the clock speeds you set, though, even when the NVIDIA control panel tests and approves the speeds. We found it to be rather hit-or-miss when it came to finding the optimal frequencies.

Sometimes we would choose a frequency, test it, and have it fail. Immediately after it failed, we would click the button to get the optimal frequencies, and both core and memory would be higher than the test that failed! Huh, what was that? Some games worked with the overclocked frequencies, others would lock-up the system. We found stability to be a big issue when overclocking this graphics card. But we have been able to run some games with 764MHz core and 2408MHz memory settings, but other games would just freeze. Overall, though, the card is already overclocked out of the box, so anything else is just a bonus.

The MSI GeForce 8600 GTS outperformed our previous GeForce 7900 GS in all tests where anti-aliasing was used. The increased clock speeds make up for the 128-bit memory interface. This card provides the power needed to play current games, as well as being able to play DirectX 10 games of the future. The only issues we found were with the stability of overclocking the card further than it already has been. When the overclocking does work, it produces some insane numbers for a GeForce 8600 class card! This is an excellent introduction card to the NVIDIA DirectX 10 compatible offerings.