This post is dedicated towards my trusty GeForce 8600GT manufactured by Galaxy and is factory over clocked (OC). I bought this graphics card about a year and a half ago, of course, relative to the time I posted this post. Now this card has been going strong for all this time and its time I talked about it. I bought it in Chennai, India, at that time for about Rs. 9000 which is rougly $226 (USD). Which I think was a reasonable price for the time. The core clock is about 600 MHz, but what I'd like to add is "DON'T SEE SPECS". Use card specifications as a guideline, but, for the ultimate test of truth I'd suggest to run a game or two, with the graphics card/motherboard combination (motherboard is very influential in performance) or even better run a program you made that used a lot of shaders (That is if your a graphics engineer). Here are some test results for a few games, with this card and the ASUS M2N E-SLI motherboard. These aren't extensive results, just the frame rates. All games were tested on the highest possible settings with only resolution and anti aliasing varying. The frame rates were recorded using Fraps (http://www.fraps.com/). All frame rates are approximate.
Game: Doom 3
- FPS: 84
- Resolution: 1280x1024
- Antialiasing: 2x
Game: Need for Speed: Most Wanted
- FPS: 79
- Resolution: 1280x1024
- Antialiasing: 4x
- FPS: 39
- Resolution: 1280x1024
- Antialiasing: On (Unknown/Not sure/Don't remember)
- FPS: 109
- Resolution: 1280x1024
- Antialiasing: 2x
- FPS: 18
- Resolution: 800x600
- Antialiasing: 0x
- FPS: 15
- Resolution: 800x600
- Antialiasing: 2x
- FPS: 4 - 7
- Resolution: 800x600
- Antialiasing: 16x
Right now, if your a poor teenager, you can probably buy this card for about 104 USD, atleast here in India.
The card manufacturer site is: http://www.galaxytech.com/
