EVGA 8600 GT Superclocked Graphics Card Review

The last of the quartet of new graphics cards we are reviewing today is the EVGA 8600 GT Superclocked. EVGA makes some great video cards and the 8600 GT Superclocked is one of the new line of NVIDIA graphics cards being launched today. Much like the 8600 GT XXX from XFX the EVGA 8600 GT Superclocked is overclocked right out of the box. If you are looking for a lower cost video card, check out the EVGA 8600 GT Superclocked video card review.

Gallery

6 images

Benchmarks

Features & Specifications
EVGA has a line of factory overclocked graphics cards like the other big card partners and EVGA calls theirs Superclocked. The EVGA 8600 GT Superclocked carries a online price of $179.99 and a MSRP at the brick and mortar stores of $199.99. That price gets you a 8600 GT that is clocked at 576MHz on the core and 1.5GHz on the memory. Like the XFX 8600 GTS XXX the EVGA 8600 GT Superclocked has 32 stream processors and 256MB of memory. All other card features are the same between card partners. Output options on the EVGA 8600 GT Superclocked are dual dual-link DVI, S-video and HDTV.

Test System
I am using the same test machine for the EVGA 8600 GT Superclocked as I did for the other cards that are launching today that has the following specifications:

• CPU- Intel QX6700
• OS- Windows XP Pro SP2
• RAM- 2GB PNY XLR8 PC2-8500
• Mainboard- EVGA 680i

3DMark06
For benchmarking and testing I am using 3DMark06, FEAR, Quake 4 and Battlefield 2142. The first test up is with 3DMark06 which I ran at default settings in the application and default settings in the NVIDIA control panel. The 3DMark06 results are as follows:

• Total 3DMarks- 5162
• SM2.0- 2025
• HDR/SM3.0- 1777
• CPU- 4038
• Return to Proxycon- 15.611
• Firefly Forest- 18.133
• Canyon Flight- 15.815
• Deep Freeze- 19.725
• CPU1- 1.376
• CPU2- 1.895

FEAR
The next test up for the EVGA 8600 GT Superclocked is FEAR. I use the FEAR in game test loop with a screen resolution of 1280 x 1024, 4x AA, 16x AF and no soft shadows. All other game settings were on max settings. The frame rates were as follows:

• Min- 17
• Avg- 32
• Max 82

The percentages looked like this; 14% of the time frame rates were below 25 fps, 68% of the time frame rates were between 25 and 40 fps and 18% of the time frame rates were greater than 40 fps.

Battlefield 2142
Next up to challenge the EVGA 8600 GT Superclocked was Battlefield 2142. I used Fraps to capture frame rate information while playing the single player map “Fall of Berlin” at a screen resolution of 1600 x 1200 with 4x AA and all settings on high. Fraps captured the following frame rate data:

• Min- 20
• Avg- 28.482
• Max- 36

Quake 4
For the final challenge I loaded up Quake 4 and ran it at high settings, 1280 x 1024, 4x AA with multi-core on. I again used Fraps to record frame rate information as follows:

• Min- 21
• Avg- 49.351
• Max- 63

As you can see from the numbers above the EVGA 8600 GT Superclocked gives up some performance to the XFX 8600 GT XXX that I reviewed as well. The numbers are close as is the price. The XFX card sells at online at an MSRP of $169.99 whereas the online MSRP for the EVGA 8600 GT Superclocked is $179 making the EVGA card about $10 more. The EVGA 8600 GT Superclocked will make for a great entry level DirectX 10 graphics card for gaming and movie watching. I can’t confirm at the time of this writing is the EVGA 8600 GT Superclocked supports HDCP for Blu-ray and HD DVD playback. I was able to confirm the XFX did not support HDCP. I suspect the EVGA card does not support HDCP either because it does not mention PureVideo HD support. I will update this review when I can confirm if HDCP is supported or not.

Verdict

Conclusion

Pros

• Performs well
• Single slot design
• Reasonably priced

Cons

• HDCP support unknown
• Cost more and has slightly less performance than other 8600 GT cards on the market

Verdict
The EVGA 8600 GT Superclocked graphics card performs very well given the cost of the card. If you need a graphics card for DirectX 10 gaming on Vista below $200 the EVGA 8600 GT Superclocked is a good option.

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