When looking at ASUS it seems to always have a new trick up their sleeves coming up with the latest twist on things for the hardcore enthusiast who wants a little more than the standard tricks we've seen before on whatever product. They've tackled video cards now for quite a while but they've got something a bit new up their sleeves though it's been seen somewhat before. What makes this card unique is the breakout box included with the video card. It connects from the video card to a USB port on your motherboard and from this it enables the breakout box to read out the frames per second of a game, the fan speed, temperature, control system volume and GPU speed. - AMDZone

ASUS Extreme N8600 GT OC Gear Graphics Review

The other major difference with this card is the large, flower shaped heatsink on the front covered by a much larger fan as well than the standard GeForce 8600 GT for better overclocking potential. The card actually comes overclocked as well with 256MB of high GDDR3 1.0ns memory clocked at 1.40GHz, ahead of the 1.19GHz of a standard GeForce 8600 GT and closer to the 1.45GHz memory speed of a GeForce 8600 GTS. Overclocking with their software it seemed to limit us at a 650MHz core clock, up from 540MHz stock speed. At this speed we are nearing if not quite to the same speeds as a GeForce 8600 GTS.

ASUS continues to innovate in the not always fresh video card market, bringing out unique solutions for those who want a little extra more in their hardware and the Extreme N8600 GT OC Gear is no different. The breakout box is a great feature and the overclocking on the GeForce 8600 GT is fantastic. Our only wish is that this could have been used on some higher-end hardware as such as a GeForce 8800 GTX but hopefully that is to come in the future. If you are interested in a GeForce 8600 GT and want something extra to show off and overclock it easier, then this is a great choice.