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Thread: Nvidia 8600GT questions

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    Nvidia 8600GT questions

    Hi there, Im looking at purchasing a new nvidia 8600 GT and i have a couple of queries.

    1. Are they 'media centre' quiet - im looking at the 256Mb XFX version in particular. If not are there any aftermarket coolers which can be recommended for a reasonable price?

    2. Do nvidia cards offer aspect ratio correction - I currently have a widescreen monitor and for playing games such as Warcraft 3 where only 4:3 and 5:4 resolution are offered, the image is naturally streched. Is it possible to get nvidia cards to put black bars down the sides for example?

    Thankyou very much in advance!

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    finding nemo staffsMike's Avatar
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    Re: Nvidia 8600GT questions

    Not sure about the aspect ratio thing.. I think mine does that.

    In terms of quiet, get a passive one and try and avoid xfx they are awful..

    gainward and gigabyte make decent passive GT's.

    What sort of budget do you have? There are a lot of cards coming down to that sort of price now.

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    Re: Nvidia 8600GT questions

    Im looking at spending around maybe £50-60, and I'm not particularly anti ATi or brand loyal at all so perhaps there are better cards on the market which would be more suitable. I'm not looking at playing Crysis on max settings, maybe Dawn of War and Neverwinter nights 2 would be great. I'm also running Vista at the moment so Directx 10 support would be advantageous.

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    Re: Nvidia 8600GT questions

    This isn't bad for £60
    http://misco.co.uk/applications/sear...p?EdpNo=300982

    But it might get a bit noisey especially when gaming. An aftermarket cooler will make it passive but at a cost of around £15 on top.

    This HD3850 is not bad either
    http://www.pixmania.co.uk/uk/uk/6699...html?srcid=867

    both of their 512MB couterparts perform far better a higher resolutions but both will be better than the 8600GT.
    The ATi cooler according to Silent PC Review is very good but others have complained.

    Mated to this
    http://www.scan.co.uk/Product.aspx?WebProductId=627848 both the 8800GT or HD3850 could be run passive or with a fan straped to them

    What resolution did you want to play at? The cheapest and easist solution would be this, and it's still an admirable performer. There is a gigabyte passive
    http://www.scan.co.uk/Product.aspx?WebProductId=661334

    EDIT: Not bad either
    http://www.dabs.com/productview.aspx?quicklinx=4YNV

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    Senior Member AdamAnubis's Avatar
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    Re: Nvidia 8600GT questions

    I've seen 8600GT's at like £30, so if you can spend £60 basically what the above post said If you find a 512MB one get one of them.

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    Re: Nvidia 8600GT questions

    Thankyou very much, my monitor is an 1440x900 LCd so i guess thats quite high unfortunately.

    I'm thinking that the Gigabyte 8600GT would be ok, as it actually comes with Neverwinter Nights 2 and is above all else quiet, which is probably most important to me.

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    Senior Member 2Cold Scorpio's Avatar
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    Re: Nvidia 8600GT questions

    I agree with staffsMike; if you can afford a GeForce 8800GT or an ATI Radeon HD3850 would be much better options if you can afford it; the 8600GT isn't really that great of a card, particularly compared to those that cost just a little more.

    I have a 512MB 8800GT, and except for maxing Crysis, I can get it to run (at top or near top settings at my max resolution of 1680x1050 on my 22" monitor). A 256MB 8800GT would be cheaper, but if you can find a HD3750 for a similar price, I'd say get it, considering it's a 512MB card.

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    Re: Nvidia 8600GT questions

    I'm not an expert on this but I think Mike would back me up when I say that you should be looking for an ATI based card if it's for a media PC, something to do with video decoding being done by the card with ATI? Anyway they seem to be generally more renouned for being Media PC friendly. Also, your resolution is not high, that would mean 1600x1200 and above typically. Personally I'd get the 3850 and put the Accelero S1 cooler on it. Okay it's going to cost you £10 more and involve a bit of tinkering yourself but the performance difference will be huge, we're talking a manitude of 2 or 3 times better games performance than the 8600GT (which were considered bad products on release are they were underpowered).

    Don't just stick with Nvidia because you know there products, that isn't a wise move.

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    Re: Nvidia 8600GT questions

    The ATi media thing is that they can deliver audio over HDMI which Nvidia can't

    Generally they are the better cards for media playback as well I believe, especially when camparing the very low cards (8400/HD4850 etc..) as they use less CPU to do it

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    Re: Nvidia 8600GT questions

    hmm very interesting, its always a tough decision. One thing I forgot to mention also is that I only have a x4 PCI express slot in my current motherboard (4coredual-vsta), is that likely to have a huge impact on the performance of my choice?

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    Re: Nvidia 8600GT questions

    Well most cards don't even really require the bandwidth 8x offers so 4x might affect it.. it might not. My honest answer is I don't actually know lol

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    Re: Nvidia 8600GT questions

    Just for anyone interested with the 4coredual-vsta board, it appears that cards such as the 8800GT and HD3850 need to be flashed with a 'gen1' firmware as the via chipset does not support pci express v2.0. I think I'd rather buy a new board in all honesty!

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    Re: Nvidia 8600GT questions

    Same sort of budget for the mobo then?

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    Re: Nvidia 8600GT questions

    Quote Originally Posted by LiamV View Post
    Just for anyone interested with the 4coredual-vsta board, it appears that cards such as the 8800GT and HD3850 need to be flashed with a 'gen1' firmware as the via chipset does not support pci express v2.0. I think I'd rather buy a new board in all honesty!
    8800GT maybe, but the HD3850 should have an automatic stepdown when it detects the voltages.

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    Re: Nvidia 8600GT questions

    I dont know to be honest, if I can keep the cost down, all the better, since I'll be wanting new DDR2 ram also!

    I have seen a quite reasonable Gigabyte board from misco:

    http://www.misco.co.uk/applications/...289278&CatId=0

    This one has quite a large space underneath the pci-e slot for a huge heatsink unit like the Accelero S1 and 3 pci slots, any thoughts?

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    Re: Nvidia 8600GT questions

    Quote Originally Posted by kalniel View Post
    8800GT maybe, but the HD3850 should have an automatic stepdown when it detects the voltages.
    I'm really quite suprised that nvidia hasnt included the same kind of feature, shame on them!

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