ASUS EN8600GT SILENT/HTDP

...new cooling system adopted by Asus which doesn't involve a fan. Quite a wonder to my ears really. I had enough of cooling fans breaking down and forcing you to buy a completely new graphic card (just because they don't sell the cooling fans alone) and those annoying rattling noises which occurr when they start to deteriorate.
This card is designed for Windows Vista (runs splendidly on XP too of course) and fully supports DirectX 10 and OpenGL ...
...Microsoft® Windows Vista™
- ASUS Splendid: Watching movies on PC is as good as on Top-of-the-line consumer television
- ASUS Video Security Online: Keep an eye on your home at all times no matter where you are
- ASUS Gamer OSD: Real-time overclocking, benchmarking and video capturing in any PC game!


==MORE ABOUT THE GEFORCE 8 SERIES==

The GeForce 8 Series is the eighth generation of NVIDIA's ... more

This review has been revised and updated in hope for a better rating and because I felt it deserved a better review. Thanks for reading.

ASUS EN8600GT SILENT

I am surprised not too see many other reviews about these Asus. This Nvidia GeForce 8600 GT Silent is simply brilliant. Not only is relatively inexpensive but also has great quality/performance level too and, as the name says, it is silent! Thanks to the new cooling system adopted by Asus which doesn't involve a fan. Quite a wonder to my ears really. I had enough of cooling fans breaking down and forcing you to buy a completely new graphic card (just because they don't sell the cooling fans alone) and those annoying rattling noises which occurr when they start to deteriorate.
This card is designed for Windows Vista (runs splendidly on XP too of course) and fully supports DirectX 10 and OpenGL 2.0 for your latest computer games. Matter of factly, you can run all new gaming titles on this card at high levels (last tried, Turning Point and Half-Life 2: Episode Two both at highest definition).

It has two DVI out-puts and a TV output which supports HDTV plus it comes with a DVI-VGA adapter in case your monitor has a VGA cable

TECHNICAL DETAILS

NVIDIA® GeForce 8600GT
Built for Microsoft Windows Vista
NVIDIA SLI Technology ready
Full support for Microsoft DirectX10 and Shader Model 4.0 enables stunning and complex special effects
OpenGL®2.0 support
GPU clock: 540 MHz
PCI Express X16
VGA RAM 512MB DDR3
Max Resolution 2048x1536
Video output: VGA; DVI-I; TV-out
HDTV
Dual Display

Features

These are some of the features listed in the manifacturer's website:

- Superior Cooling Efficiency - 7°C cooler than reference design boards
- 0 dB: super Quiet heatsink design
- Built for Microsoft® Windows Vista™
- ASUS Splendid: Watching movies on PC is as good as on Top-of-the-line consumer television
- ASUS Video Security Online: Keep an eye on your home at all times no matter where you are
- ASUS Gamer OSD: Real-time overclocking, benchmarking and video capturing in any PC game!

MORE ABOUT THE GEFORCE 8 SERIES

The GeForce 8 Series is the eighth generation of NVIDIA's GeForce graphics cards. The series also represents the third fundamentally new GPU design developed at NVIDIA as well as the company's first unified shader architecture.
Released on November 8, 2006, the 8th generation GeForce was the first ever GPU to fully support DirectX 10. Built on a brand new architecture, it has a fully unified shader architecture. Originally just the 8800GTX, the GTS was released months into the product line's life, and it took nearly 6 months for mid-range and OEM/mainstream cards to be integrated into the 8-series.

IS THE GEFORCE 8600 GOOD ENOUGH FOR GAMING?

According to many the 8600 is just not "good enough", according to me it's a load of bollocks. Read on...

Geforce 8600 GT, has been considered disappointing and underpowered by many, the main criticism being that it does not actually outperform the previous generation Geforce 7600 GT by a wide margin. It's generally about as fast as a 7800 GT, although the 8600 GT is able to pump out a large number of shader operations with its stream processors running at high shader clocks and is generally better optimized for shader-heavy games, which puts it at a considerable advantage in comparison to the lower 7xxx series and entire 6xxx series, but only in newer or just shader-heavy titles.

So the 8600 GT has an advantage in shader-heavy games and outguns the 7900 GS in modern games by quite an amount but, compared with the high end 8800, the midrange 8600 and 8500 are extremely outperformed. However, some GPU mod enthusiasts have been able to push the cards to much higher speeds, in some cases almost double, by modifying the voltage.
NVIDIA introduced one notable feature with the 8500/8600 series: 2nd-generation PureVideo. The first major update to Purevideo since the Geforce 6's launch, 2nd-gen Purevideo offered much improved hardware-decoding for VC-1 and H264 video.

CONCLUSION

About time someone would say... sorry if I dragged it for long with all these details.
To my personal experience, this card performed many "heavy" games at high definition levels impeccably. I also have a good computer so you have to keep that in consideration too, it's not all about the graphic card. I believe this card can satisfy the wide market of gameplayers who are not willing to spend large amounts of money for the very latest technology but neither want to get stuck with a graphic card that won't perform newer games in a year or so. I am very happy with my purchase, I know that there are plenty of players out there ready to spit on my choice but I am not one who cares of pushing videogames over the top. When you can play a brand new 3D game at high levels and smoothly that's fair enough for me.

Would I suggest it? Perhaps nowadays no, when I first wrote this review the graphic card was farily new but nowadays I would go for the high end 8800 which is now much cheaper (or if you can afford it, the next generation 9600/9800). However I wouldn't substitute mine for a newer one just yet, this card is still quite a wonder for me and if you cannot afford a newer model the good news is that these things go down in price fairly quickly! So if you want to upgrade your PC probably this one is a good choice.

LINKS

http://www.asus.com/

http://www.asus.com/produ cts.aspx?modelmenu=1&model=1642&l1=2&l2=6&l3=514&l4=0

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