NVIDIA is beating ATI in performance at every performance and price category. It's mid-entry product, the GeForce 8600 GTS, is a fully capable DirectX 10 class video card which was introduced back in May of this year. It's been a good value proposition for most mainstream consumers; even in light of the fact that you can find some GeForce 8800 GTS 320MB cards now for around $265. So will it make much sense to invest into a bit more special GeForce 8600 GTS, if you can get a better card for just a bit more of money? We can only think that this depends how much more you will need to spend and what do you get in return. Well the OC2 version from BFG is that video card that does offers a bit more. - BootDaily

BFG GeForce 8600 GTS 256MB OC2 Version Review

NVIDIA's GeForce 8600 GTS GPU uses 32 stream processors, 128-bit memory bus and 256MB of GDDR3 memory. It's nothing Earth shattering like the GeForce 8800 series, but then again it does offer good performance for those on a stricter budget. We know some companies sell this card closer to the $249 mark and we feel that's too close to the price of a GeForce 8800 GTS 320MB to make it viable. However, if you shop around you'll be able to find these cards at a more reasonable price. Always the innovator, BFG has released an updated version of its GeForce 8600 GTS dubbed the OC2 edition.

This GeForce 8600 GTS OC2 version incorporates the company's latest thermal technology which it calls ThermoIntelligence. This active cooling solution uses a more modified cooler than the reference specifications calls for and BFG claims that it draws no more power than competing cooling solutions do. This is important to this card as it comes from BFG already overclocked. If you look closely at BFG's cooler, it places the fan in an off-set position over the GPU which provides more surface area of the heatsink to reside on top of the GPU. Overall, BFG claims a 5% thermal drop using this method of cooling.

Reference design from NVIDIA on the GeForce 8600 GTS uses a 675MHz GPU clock and 2000MHz for the memory. BFG kicks both clock rates up quite a bit to 720/2220MHz respectively; the overall performance provides some of the best out of the box GeForce 8600 GTS performance we've seen to date. What is not at all standard is its lifetime warranty with free 24/7 technical support, and frankly we know of no other company that offers that level of support so that's something you may want to highly consider with picking which brand of video card to go with, as extended warranty generally means great products.

What we're presented with an interesting issue of price to performance value in regards to how the BFG GeForce 8600 GTS OC2 compares to a slightly more expensive GeForce 8800 GTS 320MB. Whilst it's true that you can find GeForce 8600's out there for near the $150 mark, none in that price range will have the same clock rates nor the better cooler. BFG makes a first rate product, no question about it, but we'd really like to see it get more aggressive on its price before we can give this a full-on recommendation given its current price point. If you can find this card for $225 or below, we would say go for it!