Based on 8600 chipset from Nvidia, Simmtronics 8600GT is a budget range
solution for game enthusiasts. It has a core clock speed of 540 MHz and a memory
clock speed of 700 MHz with 256 MB of DDR2 RAM. We must anyhow prefer DDR3 RAM
instead of the DDR2, it would enable you to get much faster bus speed and higher
peak throughputs than earlier technologies, but ofcourse you need to pay few
extra bucks. It has all the regular features such as HDTV, DVI, VGA etc, though
the HDCP support is missing, which could've been an added advantage.
It performed decently in all the tests. In 3D Mark06 it gave a score of 3067,
which at this price is decent enough, but is lower than the likes of Asus 8600GT
(256 MB DDR2), Palit 8600GT (256 MB RAM), MSI 8600GT (256 MB RAM) all of which
have scored over 4000 in 3D Mark06 test. In gaming tests, it gave an average of
20.5 fps at max setting in Company of Heroes, which is low considering the fact
that we have seen better performance from cards with similar chipsets. For
instance Palit 8600GT scored 29 fps at max setting, whereas MSI scored around 31
fps. Being a DirectX 10 compatible card it can play all the latest games. You
might not find this one adequate to enjoy high intensity games such as Crysis at
max settings, but you can surely enjoy the game at lower resolution and graphic
settings.
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Bottomline: If you have a limited budget but you
want decent graphics performance , then this one is worth a look