Gainward are one of NVIDIA's most well respected add in board manufacturers. With a long history of producing fast cards that overclock well, Gainward are a company who's hardware we always like to see. Somehow Gainward always manages to come with great customized solutions that provide that extra more that we are all looking for in a graphics card. Today we're taking a look at a GeForce 8600 GT with a twist. In fact Gainward have placed an HDMI port on the back of this mid-range card. This means that all those of you out there who are media nuts and have HDMI equipped HDTV's should become all ears. So let's see how it all stacks up shall we? - Overclock3D

Gainward BLISS 8600 GT Goes Like Hell Card Review

The packaging on the Gainward BLISS 8600 GT is the usual Gainward fare with a rendered lass on the front and the Golden Sample sticker featuring the Goes Like Hell suffix added to show that this SKU is one of gainwards flagship cherry picked Golden Sample chips. Inside the box wraps the card up well as we have come to expect from Gainward. The package that you get with the Gainward BLISS 8600 GT isn't bad, but it isn't fantastic either. Software wise you get a full edition of CyberLink DVD Solution, which is great and fits in with the media theme. Hardware wise you get all the cables are needed and expected.

The Gainward BLISS 8600 GT Golden Sample edition featuring 256MB memory is a nice looking card with a rather attractive red heatsink and red PCB with black trimmings. Something to note straight away is that this is a dual slot heatsink, which is a little surprising seeing as this card is aimed at media PC's and is designed with an HDMI output. Certainly an unusual looking card, the small black aluminium heatsink sits below a mesh front. This card is certainly one for those who have a case window, it is very stylish. The heatsink is neatly covered by a black mesh and comes with sinks for the memory.

The Gainward BLISS 8600 GT Goes Like Hell is a decent performing GeForce 8600 GT with a nice set of outputs including HDMI and a decent heatsink that looks fantastic. The trouble for the GeForce 8600 series is that ATI brought out the Radeon HD 3850 which trounced NVIDIA's lineup in that price bracket. The Radeon HD 3850, however, is a little more money and generally comes in at over $150, whereas you should be able to pick up the Gainward BLISS 8600 GT at a decent $125. It's unfortunate that the Radeon HD 3850 is so close in price to the GeForce 8600 GT as this newer card really shows up the NVIDIA mid-range.