NVIDIA GeForce 8600 GTS SSC Retro Unboxing Linus Tech Tips
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2011-05-08
·
1,058 words · ~5 min read
0:00
yes another retro unboxing today we will
0:03
be unboxing the EVGA GeForce 8600 GTS
0:08
super super clocked Edition 256 megabyte
0:12
PCIe direct X10 ready with a big circle
0:16
direct X10 ready hdcp capable back when anyone cared about that video card it is
0:23
SLI ready it is Graphics by NVIDIA and it has a free copy of enemy territory
0:27
Quake Wars inside it also includes EVGA 90-day stepup program which probably
0:33
isn't valid for this card anymore I'm thinking because it's pretty old okay
0:38
SLI ready full direct X10 support blah blah blah this is all the same stuff we
0:41
saw before high dynamic range lighting wow two dual link DVI output support two
0:47
2560 x600 resolution displays wow uh
0:51
what else do we got here okay lifetime warranty really comes with a lifetime
0:55
warranty upon product registration well that's pretty cool pretty cool for like
1:00
a relatively low-end card all right make sure these two stickers match up before
1:04
you buy this card let's open this baby up there we
1:08
are break that seal like nobody's
1:14
business designed for extreme HD
1:17
gaming not anymore it isn't but it
1:22
was I hated this packaging from EVGA back when they used to package cards
1:26
like this because it was impossible because of the the lips on the plastic
1:31
to put it back in without catching the uh the tab here so then you could never
1:36
put this stupid card back in the box if you wanted to um which is a problem when
1:41
you're a professional unboxer like me okay the folder contains evj K stickers
1:45
and installation CD with trial software and an installation guide so throw that
1:49
CD away download the latest drivers off the NVIDIA website because I can pretty
1:53
much guarantee you this is a really old driver at this point all right so let's
1:57
go ahead and throw this back in there
2:00
evga's packaging has really come a long way since then okay enemy territory
2:04
Quake Wars um okay not a super relevant
2:08
game anymore oo look at this we got one of those uh component out thingamajiggy
2:13
Bobs that could be useful not all right
2:17
we've got two Molex to single PCIe power
2:20
adapter we've got an S video out cable
2:24
that could be useful not okay then we've got two DVI to VGA adapters because back
2:29
then most people were still running VGA monitors well not maybe not most but
2:35
many gamers were still running VGA monitors even if they were buying new
2:39
gaming graphics cards all right so here I'm just going to put this aside put
2:43
this aside put this on a side and bring
2:46
it over here and we'll have a look at the 8600 GTS now I don't remember
2:50
exactly what the difference
2:54
was between the 8600 GTS and the 8600 GT
2:59
but um my understanding is it's something to do with lower memory on the GTS and a
3:05
higher clock speed or something like that and the performance was fairly
3:09
similar now there's a very good reason actually that I'm doing this particular
3:13
retro unboxing but I'm going to get to that after I have a look at the overall
3:17
layout of the card so this is from back when gaming cards could actually be
3:21
single slot so you can see here we've got just a single fan here we've got a
3:25
nice little cooler I don't know if it includes any heat pipes it looks like it
3:28
doesn't just a typical thin cooler and it actually exhausts all of the air
3:33
either out the back of the cooler here or um probably more of it comes out of
3:37
the top of it here so that's going to be maybe a bit of an issue for the card
3:42
the next one down because as I recall the 8600 did round a little on the
3:45
toasty side but shouldn't be that big of a deal especially with the ventilation
3:49
that you get in most decent gaming cases the SLI Bridge used to be located in a
3:53
fairly different location compared to what we see now where the SLI bridge is
3:57
usually right about here and there might be a secondary one here on many cards uh
4:02
we've got a single PCIe six pin power connector we've got some capacitors and
4:07
voltage regulation we've got a PCI Express 16x slot that the card runs off
4:12
of and then up here where we would typically these days see DVI DVI and
4:16
mini HDMI we now see that s video and
4:19
component output thing as to go along with the
4:24
two um dual link DVI ports on the back
4:27
of the card we find nothing really of Interest and that's pretty much it so
4:31
why did I do this unboxing the reason is
4:34
that I wanted to compare a card from a few years ago to a card that cost the
4:40
same today as this one did a few years
4:43
ago and I want to do what I did with the GTX 560 TI launch with the 550 TI launch
4:50
so I'm going to take that card from a few years ago in the similar price
4:53
bracket and I'm going to say okay let's say you own one of these or you own an
4:56
8600 GT or some other similar class of GPU what kind of an image quality
5:02
improvement what kind of a gameplay Improvement are you going to see by
5:06
upgrading to a current generation similar directx11 GPU such as the 550 TI
5:13
so thank you for checking out this unboxing of the 8600 GTS super super
5:18
clocked don't forget to subscribe to Linus Tech tips for more unboxings
5:22
reviews and other videos especially if you do want to see that image quality
5:27
comparison I'll likely use crisis just because it's uh you know a pretty
5:32
demanding game I might use Metro 2033 haven't really decided yet but
5:36
definitely subscribe if you want to make sure that you catch that image quality
5:39
comparison between the 550 TI or taii
5:42
and the old 88 U 88 8600 GTS super super
5:48
claw