INQ strips down Nvidia 8600GT/GTS, 8500GT
NVIDIA DECIDED TO launch its mainstream cards in the second part of April, thus leaving CeBIT dry from all the news that was supposed to happen. But, as usually happens, we saw several R600 G84 and G86 boards, alongside tons of unreleased chipsets from Intel and Nvidia.
But, that's beside the point. In this article we are going to disclose the looks of GeForce 8600GTS, 8600GT and 8500GT. The 8500GT is based on G86-300 rev A2, while G84 powered 8600 boards.
GeForce 8600GTS
PCB is shorter than 7900GT, yet performance should be way better than partners previously expected
External power guarantees stable power delivery to highly clocked GPU and memory
Nvidia's pride and joy for $200 will be based on 256MB of GDDR3 memory, either from Samsung or Qimonda.
The clock for the GPU is set at 675MHz, while the memory works at a cool 1000MHz DDR - that's 2 GHz in marketing lingo, 200 MHz faster than on the 8800GTX. This is possible because G84 GPU uses 128-bit memory controller and does not load the memory hard, so memory errors are much likely to occur and partners will be able to clock them even faster than current default clock.
You can see that this part is
eating a lot more power than previous 7600GT, so external power has to be connected via 6-pin PCIe connector, and PCB has been changed from classical 7600 one to a new, 8-layer heavy one.
The biggest SNAFU that Graphzilla has right now is the situation with HDCP, or the lack of it. G86 supports HDCP native, G84 has issues. Thus, partners will have to buy additional Encrypto-key EEPROM chips in order for GF8600GTS to have a support for practically any HD content out there.
GeForce 8600GT
Ole' 6600/7600 PCB got a fresh look and is ready to go for the third time
No external connector here, so you're on the mercy of your motherboard
GeForce 8600GT is your typical 150 Dollar/Euro solution, but offers quite a decent performance boost over 7600GT, yet alone 7600GS and similar variants.
This one is
based on typical 7600 PCB, so you can see affordable pricing due to low-cost six-layer PCB. Having a well-known PCB design to partners enabled those companies to be flexible with work speeds, so
you will see a lot of "Golden Samples" coming in late April/May timeframe.
Memory clock has been cut down to 700 MHz DDR (1.4 GHz) and memory type is of course, GDDR3. GPU itself is clocked at 540 MHz, but being the same as one inside 8600GTS, your overclocking headroom is limited only by available power coming from the PCIe x16 slot (75W max). Power is designed around 43W mark, so GPU should be able to hit 600 MHz or more.
GeForce 8500GT
New Entry level model comes with 128MB or 256MB of memory, and partners said it is using 128-bit bus... which collides with some information we have from before
GeForce 8500GT is based on G86 chip, which made all the way to final A2 revision. Even though nV likes to cover all of the details about this entry-level GPU, we managed to find a lot of interesting details.
Memory controller should fix the error company made with 7300 chips (in this area, G86 holds firm ground against RV610) and that wide bus will be connected to either GDDR3 and DDR2 memory (expect very few GDDR3 ones).
Pricewise, company wants to sell
256 MB models for around 100 Dollar/Euro, while 128MB should retail for 79.
All in all, April will be the DirectX10 month. µ
http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=38258
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Originally Posted by hipno650
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