XFX released a new model GeForce 8600 GT recently, and again one from their Fatal1ty line-up of products, this being the second from that line. We'll have a look at that new product line from XFX, with a product which will bring a couple of new features to the existing product line for sure. The GeForce 8600 GT Fatal1ty graphics card comes with it's GPU core pre-overclocked at 620MHz and 256MB memory clocked at 1700MHz. That's not that special, yet it's doing that while being passively cooled. So, we are looking at the XFX GeForce 8600 GT Fatal1ty edition graphics card. Armed with 256MB high speed memory and a stack load of performance for your bucks to be honest. - Guru3D

XFX GeForce 8600 GT 256MB Fatal1ty Edition Review

Let's analyze a little. First off, the GeForce 8800 GTS and GTX are brilliantly performing cards. They have a lot power thanks to the sheer number of stream processors. The GTX has 128 units, the GTS cards have 96 shader units. If you do some generic math you'd know we expected the mid-range products to have 48 shader units, but that's not the case. Merely 32 units are present in the GeForce 8600 series and actually a very shallow 16 on the GeForce 8500. Now since we are looking at a GeForce 8600 card today let's keep focus on that one. And look at the specifics around the Fatal1ty series.

The 32 shader units inside the GPU is not a lot, but for a mid-range product it could be enough if you give the product the proper what we call framebuffer performance. The memory on your graphics card is very influential when you look at its bandwidth. So we were surprised to see a 128-bit bus as we should have really moved towards a 256-bit bus. The 256-bit memory is dirt cheap so that's just not a logical step from my point of view. It's simple, the difference between memory for 128-bit versus 256-bit is half the bandwidth and has a very intense effect on the overall framerate of your games.

The Fatal1ty brand cards card are targeted at a very wide audience; today's tested card with a sales price of roughly $169. But what does that Fatal1ty version entail? Well, this is a pre-overclocked GeForce 8600 GT which offers higher than reference core and memory frequencies. NVIDIA's recommended clock speeds are 540MHz GPU and 1400MHz memory for the GeForce 8600 GT series of cards. XFX has this card fully warranted for two years and pre-overclocked at 620MHz GPU and 1700MHz memory. We are looking at a nice dark design PCB and the thing that you'll love the most is it's passive cooling.

It's no secret and you know it, we like the GT cards better than the GTS purely based on pricing level. Over the past weeks the prices have dropped a little and the GeForce 8600 GT already sells below $150. That's really good. Due to it's design, overclock and cooling the Fatal1ty product is slightly more expensive though. None the less, you can purchase the product at roughly $170 and quite honestly, the passive cooler alone makes that a worthy purchase. It's already comes pre-overclocked, yet can be clocked even better, also we like the black dark color theme this card has, it makes it stand out from the rest for sure.

You can't deny that you just have to like this product it'll offer you a nice set of features, performance and value for that kind of money. It's a feast to the eyes with it's beautiful design and you can't hear the card as it's passively cooled. It's a really tight card to own for sure and will offer you a good gaming experience if you own a decent LCD screen.