This card comes 'pre-cooked' with the overclocking. No 'reheating' necessary. However, if you like yours 'well-done', you can turn up the clock speed to some
unbelievable rates. The card doesn't always work at the clock speeds you set, though, even when the nVidia Control Panel tests and approves the speeds. I found
it to be rather hit-or-miss when it came to finding the optimal frequencies. Sometimes I would choose a frequency, test it, and have it fail. Immediately after
it failed, I would click the button to get the optimal frequencies, and both core and memory would be HIGHER than my test that failed! Huh? What was that? Some
games worked with the overclocked frequencies, others would lock-up the system. I found stability to be a big issue when overclocking this card. I was able to
test F.E.A.R. and Oblivion with 764 MHz Core and 1204 MHz Memory settings, but other games would just freeze. Overall, though, the card is already overclocked out
of the box, so anything else is just a bonus.
CONCLUSION
The MSI NX8600GTS outperformed my previous 7900GS in all tests where Antialiasing was used. The increased clock speeds make up for the 128-bit memory interface. This
card provides the power needed to play current games, as well as being able to play DX10 games of the future. The only issues I found were with the stability of
overclocking the card further than it already has been. When the overclocking does work, it produces some insane numbers for an 8600 class card!
This is an excellent introduction card to the nVidia DX10 compatible offerings. The MSI NX8600GTS earns a Home Run. Thanks to MSI for providing this great card.
