MSI GeForce 8500 GT and 8600 GT Comparison - Page 2 of 8
Review By Jonathan Martini - July 13, 2007
RETAIL PACKAGING
The MSI GeForce 8600 GT OC ships in a fairly large box whose size is comparable to that of a motherboard box. The box displays info about the card on the backside in a variety of languages and contains a fair amount of padding to protect the card during transport.
MSI GeForce 8600 GT OC Retail Box - Front
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MSI GeForce 8600 GT OC Retail Box - Back
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The PCB is slightly longer than that of MSI's GeForce 8500 GT. The layout contains some larger capacitors along with some power circuitry along the back of the card. Note that these components were not required for the lower-powered 8500 GT.
The 8600 GT doesn't require any additional power via the PCI-E power connectors as the card is very economical, using 65W of power, which the PCI Express connector is capable of providing.
MSI GeForce 8600 GT OC - Front
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MSI has placed a custom active heatsink on the 8600 GT OC. MSI states that in their testing, the card was typically five of more degrees Celsius cooler than the reference design. Unfortunately, I don't have a reference heatsink-equipped 8600 GT with which to compare.
MSI GeForce 8600 GT OC - Back
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The card is equipped with Dual DVI outputs, which are each capable of driving a dual-link display. Thus, both DVI outputs are yellow-colored to demonstrate that they are capable of driving dual-link displays, as was outlined on the previous page.
MSI GeForce 8600 GT OC - Side View
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We see that the SLI connection has returned on the 8600 GT.
So what does the "OC Edition" offer over the standard? How about a healthy 200 MHz overclock on the memory and an additional 40 MHz on the core. This brings the MSI GeForce 8600 GT OC up to a 580 MHz core clock speed and 1.6 GHz memory speed. At these speeds, MSI's offering is among the fastest factory overclocked 8600 GT's.
MSI GeForce 8600 GT OC - Contents
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Included with the video card are two quick user guides, two VGA-to-DVI converters, Driver CD, TV-out splitter and S-Video extension cable. The TV-out splitter breaks out into a single S-Video connection, or the three cable component connections. The accompanying kit is the same as for the 8500 GT, with the inclusion of a second DVI-to-VGA.
