A GeForce 8600 GT, a GeForce 8600 GTS or a Radeon HD 2600 XT, which is the best value? Well we will look at a brand new XFX GeForce 8600 GT XXX Edition and put it up against the nearest competition, like the GeForce 8600 GTS and Radeon HD 2600 XT to get a view on the performance in current games. The GeForce 8600 GT is certainly a very interesting graphics card with a great price tag. At $60 less than the XFX GeForce 8600 GTS XXX Edition it produced a very close game play experience and that is not even mentioning the overclocking potential. With overclocking entered into the picture we found that it was very competitive with a GeForce 8600 GTS based video card. - HardOCP

XFX GeForce 8600 GT 256MB XXX Video Card Review

The moniker XXX Edition indicates that this video card is very highly factory overclocked. XFX has taken the GeForce 8600 GT GPU and equipped it with 256MB of GDDR3, increased the GPU core speed from 540MHz to 620MHz, and increased the memory frequency from 1.4GHz to 1.6GHz effective. XFX's box is slim and just big enough to fit the card and the few accessories that are included with it. On the front of the box it displays a SLI ready logo, a 256MB GDDR3 logo, the core frequency, and a XXX Edition logo. Though XFX has left out that the memory is being overclocked, so why not touting this with its own logo?

The XFX GeForce 8600 GT XXX Edition needs no external power connector, and is SLI ready. The video card uses a black PCB board, and a black IO bracket. The heatsink itself is black and has a mostly white sticker on top of it. On the sticker it has dog tags with the XFX logo on it and under the dog tags is says GeForce 8600 GT. On the back of the card again we can see the specific model and details about the card on the sticker. For being a highly overclocked video card, the cooling is quite simple indeed. The XFX GeForce 8600 GT XXX Edition is currently also quite cheap and can be found for about $120.

The XFX GeForce 8600 GT XXX Edition did not produce the best game play experience in any of our games, but it put up a hell of a fight for the money. At $60 less than the XFX GeForce 8600 GTS XXX Edition it produced a very close gameplay experience and that is not even mentioning the overclocking potential. With overclocking entered into the picture we found that it was very competitive with a GeForce 8600 GTS based video card. XFX has put together a solid bundle in a sleek package with a very capable gaming video card. Having a nice price tag and great performance you can't go wrong with the XFX package, and get some extra performance to squeeze out of the graphics accelerator if needed.

We also wanted to know whether the ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT was still in the running and surprisingly it was able to give us the same or better game play experience than the GTS XXX Edition. What this means for the future of the Radeon HD 2600 XT is unknown. When it came to Lost Planet and the DirectX 10 performance it tanked, but that is just one game, and certainly not the end all be all to DirectX 10 performance. The XFX GeForce 8600 GT XXX Edition is hands down the best value in the mainstream video card market. If you are looking for the most bang for your buck, you won't find better in this price range.