The XFX card is on the same PCB as the NVIDIA reference card picture. The card is cooled by a 9-fin cooling fan and a small heatsink reminiscent of the heatsink on the 7950GT cards or 7600GT card. An array of capacitors is on the rear of the card, regulating power. XFX has their logo and two dog tags on the cover of the heatsink. As their mascot for the last year or two has been a dog, this makes a lot of sense.



XFX decided to clock their 8600GT at an impressive 620MHz for the core, and 1.6GHz for the memory effective clock rate. What this means is that the card is within 60MHz of the reference 8600GTS speed, and 80MHz faster than the recommended clock of the reference 8600GT. The memory speed is a 200MHz improvement over the reference 8600GT and 400MHz slower than the reference 8600GTS memory clock.



Mid-range cards designed for the $199 price range have sported the 128-bit memory bus for years. NVIDIA had the opportunity to offer a 256-bit bus for their mid-range cards, but chose not to. 128-bit memory clocked at 1.6GHz means that the 8600GT from XFX has a memory bandwidth of 25.6GB/second which is a full 3.2GB/second more than the reference 8600GT but 6.6GB/second less than the 8600GTS reference card.

8800 series cards from NVIDIA require two PCI Express power connectors to run the card in operation. The 8600GTS requires a single power connector. The 8600GT, on the other hand, is the highest performing 8 class card that runs without additional power provided by a power connector. NVIDIA states that the 8600GT will draw 45W of power at highest output, with the 8600GTS drawing 81W.



XFX offers a Double Lifetime Warranty with their retail video cards. What this means is the card can be transferred to another person and the Warranty follows the card. Most manufacturers with a Lifetime Warranty only offer it to the original purchaser, limiting options if you want to EBay your card in the future or give it away to a friend. It is an interesting option that means that XFX cards have good resale ability.