We've recently found out that Gainward will be among the first to have a GeForce 8600 GT with HDMI interface, and not long after that we received a sample. So far, we have seen many NVIDIA cards that enable HDMI signal trough DVI connection, but it seems that Gainward are the first ones to feature a real HDMI connector on a card. NVIDIA's problem is that the audio controller is not an integrated part of the chip so the sound has to be routed to the card separately, then to be merged with video in order to get a full multimedia stream on HDMI. Zotac first came up with a solution which allowed as well to have full HDMI support via a seperate audio cable interconnection. - FudZilla

Gainward BLISS 8600 GT HDMI 256MB Board Review

Although it is a solution to a problem of digital sound in HDMI, we've noticed that not all motherboards feature a S-PDIF connection, or even when they do, it proves to be a quite complicated procedure for an inexperienced user. The other problem was that a DVI to HDMI dongle was necessary. First glance at a Gainward card proves that there had been certain changes when it comes to sound capture. The S-PDIF has been relocated to the I/O side of the card, and HDMI has also found its rightful place. It's a good thing that DVI and VGA ports are still on the card, although it became a dual slot graphics card.

We have tested the functionality and after connecting HDMI to a TV we had to install all the necessary drivers in order to make it work. The problem arose after trying to connect S-PDIF on the graphics card to S-PDIF connection on the motherboard. The actual motherboard that we use for graphics card testing, uses an optical S-PDIF so that we couldn't connect a cable to. It is sad that not everyone will be able to enjoy a full HDMI signal. You need to be careful when buying a graphics card, so first check whether your motherboard features a matching S-PDIF connector.

If you're just interested in HDMI video, and you intend to route the sound from the sound card, or through an amplifier, then it's not a problem, the Gainward BLISS 8600GT HDMI works flawlessly. We have done some brief testing of this card that runs at NVIDIA's GeForce 8600 GT reference speeds, so the core runs at 540MHz, and the memory at 1400MHz. And in the end there is no noticeable different in the gaming performance compared to a standard GeForce 8600 GT graphics card.