NVIDIA's GeForce 8600 series brings DX10 without breaking the bank

If you want to join the ranks of the cool kids with one of those nifty DirectX 10 cards for promoting Vista shenanigans, but don't want to sell any vital internal organs to purchase a GeForce 8800 GTX or one of those upcoming ATI R600 cards, then you might be happy to hear that the price of entry is about to get a whole lot cheaper. Details of NVIDIA's upcoming GeForce 8600 series have been revealed, with the 8600 GT going for roughly $150 and the 8600 Ultra demanding a $180 pricetag. Considering the fact that an 8800 GTX will cost you about $600 at the moment, this is good news indeed. The specs aren't anything to sneeze at, either, with both 8600 cards being built with an 80nm process and 300 million transistors. The GT runs at 350MHz, with 256MB of RAM to call its own, while the Ultra sports a 500MHz core, with 512MB of memory. The launch is supposedly timed to coincide with the R600's launch, will certainly steal a bit of ATI's thunder.

[Via Guru 3D]

[Brian @ Feb 2nd 2007 3:21PM]

and i was just about to buy the 8800

[Dave @ Feb 2nd 2007 3:23PM]

I'd like to see some SLI comparisons.

[Christian Martin @ Feb 2nd 2007 3:35PM]

I agree. Pending that information, count me in for two Ultras (Ultrae?).

[RyogaHibiki @ Feb 2nd 2007 3:36PM]

Nice Price.

I would love to read some reviews on these cards. But if they're decent performers, these cards are gonna sell like hotcakes at this price.

[dave @ Feb 2nd 2007 3:42PM]

i would buy 100 if sli would support it. this makes the 8800 seem like a waste in my opinion. and i was about to blow all my cash as well...

[Brian @ Feb 2nd 2007 3:46PM]

I see this as the perfect chance to upgrade from my 6600GT.

[Ben @ Feb 2nd 2007 3:50PM]

I think this is awesome. I might actually get a DX10 card now. I'm a big believer in saving big cost for cutting MARGINAL performance. As long as 1 (or maybe 2) can play UT3 w/ par settings, I'll be content

[nemi @ Feb 2nd 2007 4:07PM]

Well, looking at the shaders , clock speed etc. of hte 8600 ULTRA compared to the 6800GTX then it looks like it will be just under 1/2 the performance.

Thsi will put it somewhere aroudn the 7900GS level in DirectX *9*. Which coincidently is at the same price point, just with DirectX10 support.

[nemi @ Feb 2nd 2007 4:13PM]

opps I meant 8800GTX no 6800GTX (typo)

[T221 @ Feb 2nd 2007 4:14PM]

Does it have dual-dual-link DVI like my 7900GS card? I'll buy it if it does. Hopefully this is under 75 watts so I don't have to plug in extra power connectors.

[nemi @ Feb 2nd 2007 5:53PM]

Spotted one more thing. The 8600GT is going to be terrible for HD video acceleration. Nvidia's current GPU accelerated HD decoders are very dependant on GPU clock speed. For good performance you need >500MHz core GPU speed, the 8600GT is only 350MHz.

It will be interesting to compare the 8300GT and 8600GT, for some tasks (like HD decode) I think the cheaper 8300GT will be faster!

[Xenoterranos @ Feb 2nd 2007 4:14PM]

W00t! Here I was in a quandry:
I want to upgrade my antique skt754 system with its 5900Ultra, but I don't want to spend more than 200 on a vid card...AND I want DX10 so I don't need to upgrade again for a few years.

Thank you nVidia. Hopefully AMD (ATI) will come out with a decent alternative and the price wars will commence once again.

[sdsdv10 @ Feb 2nd 2007 4:50PM]

"Xenoterranos said

I want to upgrade my antique skt754 system with its 5900Ultra, but I don't want to spend more than 200 on a vid card...AND I want DX10 so I don't need to upgrade again for a few years."

Isn't your 5900Ultra AGP? It isn't clear if there will be any DX10 cards in the AGP format.

[Shibathedog @ Feb 2nd 2007 4:32PM]

Ive been waiting for ATi DX10 cards to come out for a long ass time, So that the prices of their other cards would go down (im planning on buying an X1950XTX or X1950XT) But if this card outperforms those two (or at least comes pretty close) ill buy it instead.

[runningfire @ Feb 2nd 2007 4:49PM]

I don't get how it would steal some of ATi's thunder considering that ATI is coming out with 4 different versions of the R600 when it is launched.

[applesucksLeo @ Feb 2nd 2007 5:11PM]

Yeah !!!DX10 with good specs. for a not bad price.

[Maestro @ Feb 2nd 2007 5:14PM]

I want a laptop version so I can go ahead and buy a new laptop...not so simple to upgrade your dx9 mobile video card to dx10.

[nemi @ Feb 2nd 2007 5:58PM]

There are a few socket 754 motherbaords out there with PCIe (it supprised me!). Get one of those for

[tobin92 @ Feb 3rd 2007 12:35PM]

I'll pick up the 8600 Ultra or 8800GTS for my next build

[Pal @ Feb 3rd 2007 12:14AM]

"The GT runs at 350MHz, with 256MB of RAM to call its own, while the Ultra sports a 500MHz core, with 512MB of memory."

You sure get a lot more for $30!

[Christopher Handley @ Feb 3rd 2007 11:57AM]

This looks very very nice. If it performs as well as it looks like it will it will be a winner. They could sell a helluva lot of cards if this is the deal it appears to be. Hell yeah.

[Aaron @ Feb 3rd 2007 4:00AM]

Hmm, OK, so I have a Radeon x1600 Pro (AGP, sadly). I'm getting Vista real soon and I was wanting some DX10 love, and this is a good price, but will it be better than what I've got? Also, I've been using ATI cards for several years... which is the way to go, nVidia or ATI? Decisions...

[sockatume @ Feb 3rd 2007 8:52AM]

I use a 7600GT for my DX9 games and with a mild overclock it's plenty powerful, at least at 1280x1024. So I expect I'll be investing in the 8600GT in the near future.

[h0mi @ Feb 3rd 2007 6:09PM]

Are these upgrades compared to the 7950?

[uhsf @ Feb 3rd 2007 7:08PM]

The bank actually will get broken by paying the high electricity bill that comes bundled with it.

[me @ Feb 5th 2007 1:11AM]

I'm hoping one of these cards are 75 watts or lower so it doesn't require the auxiliary power cable. It'll be a nice upgrade from a Quadro FX1500 which is only 65 watts.

[Damo @ Feb 5th 2007 3:25PM]

My question is: what language was the original site in and when they say "179 dollars and 149 dollars" do they mean US dollars?

[Digital24 @ Feb 9th 2007 11:01PM]

I just wanted to buy 7900gto for 335$; but now i will absolutly buy the all mighty :) 8600 ultra... go nvidia i've been waiting a long time for this one. I currently have 6600gt and i hope to see alot more performance in all current games especialy FEAR, Oblivion,...and Open GL aplications..(but i've heard that the new vista doesn't preform so good in open gl apps, shame on you Microsoft :S)

[TiberiusJones @ Apr 19th 2007 9:13PM]

If you're deciding between ATI and Nvidia, that is more of a cost decision than anything. So, let your wallet do the deciding for you. If you've got $750 to spend, then wait for the ATI r600 and get a new power supply to run it. If you are more budget conscious, I love my 8800GTS 640MB. Get all the primary benefits of the GTX without the cost. In games that will be released over the next two years, the 640MB 8800GTS will be more card than you need.

Come summer 2009, that's when the first serious wave of DX10 games will hit that require a bit more punch to run at full settings. But, early impressions are that the 8800GTS 640mb will run CRYSIS at full settings with a very nice framerate if you have a nice processor.

Good luck!
The 320MB version is $100 less but will not be future proof even through the end of the year if you plan to play the newest "shiniest" games.

I got my EVGA 8800GTS 640MB through tigerdirect for $389.99 with a $30 rebate making it $359.00. Hard to argue with that.