The GeForce 8600 GTS is the fastest mid-range video card from the new GeForce 8 family from NVIDIA, targeted for users that want a performance higher than GeForce 8600 GT and are willing to pay more for this performance gain. This model from MSI, the GeForce 8600 GTS OC Edition, comes factory overclocked, meaning that it will achieve a performance higher than the standard GeForce 8600 GTS, and also supports HDMI. The main difference between GeForce 8 and GeForce 7 families is the adoption of DirectX 10 on GeForce 8 family. What this means is that they will support the next generation of games to be released starting this year. - Hardware Secrets

MSI GeForce 8600 GTS OverClocked Edition Review

It also means that instead of using separated shader units for each kind of shader processing video cards from this family use a unified shader architecture, where the shader engines can process any one of these tasks. So far AMD has announced their ATI Radeon HD 2000 family, which also supports DirectX 10 and uses unified shader architecture however mid-range products will be only available in late June, like about one month from now. This leaves mid-range cards from the GeForce 8 family like the GeForce 8600 GTS without real direct competitors in this segment.

The basic difference between GeForce 8600 GTS is the clock used. Thus we can consider GeForce 8600 GTS a turbo GeForce 8600 GT, as both cards have 32 processing engines. The standard GeForce 8600 GTS runs at 675MHz and accesses its 256MB GDDR3 memory at 2000MHz through a 128-bit interface, so it can access its memory at a maximum transfer rate of 32GB/s. This model from MSI comes overclocked, with the graphics chip running at 700MHz and its memory running at 2100MHz, with a maximum memory transfer rate of 33.6 GB/s. So it's running faster than the default GeForce 8600 GTS graphics card.

The GeForce 8600 GTS is clearly targeted to users that want the fastest mid-range card in town but doesn't want to go for a high-end model. In fact, the GeForce 8600 GTS OC Edition was the fastest mid-range video card to date, which is really impressive. Compared to Radeon X1950 PRO this overclocked GeForce 8600 GTS from MSI was faster in some games and simulations but on games that memory bandwidth plays a major role, Radeon X1950 PRO came out on top. After all we are comparing a video card with a 128-bit memory bus to a video card with a 256-bit memory bus.

Then comes pricing. This video card can be found around $200 on the market, but we found it at the lowest at about $175. However the Radeon X1950 PRO can be also be found around $200, but the model from Sapphire is going for only $146, making it an unbeatable deal for the average user. Considering the standard pricing, we honestly think that for the average user the GeForce 8600 GT is the best deal around, as it provides a better cost/benefit ratio than the GeForce 8600 GTS. The GeForce 8600 GTS is clearly targeted for those who want higher performance and can pay a bit more.