Overclocking:

We played around with Rivatuner and the Inno3D GeForce 8600 GTS iChiLL Xstriker3 for a few hours and managed to get the card to overclock pretty well. After some stability testing in Company of Heroes, Call of Duty 2 and Team Fortress 2, we finally got the card running up at 789MHz core, 1620MHz shader and 1107MHz (2214MHz effective) memory.

This represents increases of 12 percent on both the core and shader throughput and a 5.4 percent increase in memory bandwidth. At higher core clocks, we encountered driver crashes in Windows Vista and at higher memory clocks, we encountered visible artifacting in games, although it wasn't as harsh as the tearing we've seen on some of the previous cards we've overclocked - maybe this is Inno3D's Xstriker3 cooler playing a part.

Overall, overclocking performance took this card from being a reasonably average performer to one that fares slightly better than par for the course.

Temperature Testing:

In addition to our usual gamut of testing, we also felt that, given the change of cooling solution, we should compare the operating temperature of Inno3D's card to a range of other cooling solutions. However, because Inno3D's PCB uses a two-pin fan header, we were unable to make any direct comparisons because both BFGTech's ThermoIntelligence cooler and the Nvidia reference fansink use four-pin headers.

Instead, we compared the three cards in the same operating environment with each of the configurations running at the same clock speeds as the Inno3D card (i.e. 705MHz core, 1450MHz shader and 2100MHz memory). We monitored idle and load temperatures using RivaTuner's in-built temperature monitoring tool at an ambient temperature of 23 degrees - each test was repeated three times and results were averaged.


Inno3D appears to have made a good choice with its Xstriker3 cooling solution, as it performs around five degrees better than the BFGTech ThermoIntelligence cooler. Obviously though, the design is a dual-slot solution whereas BFGTech manages to squeeze all of that extra cooling performance into a single slot that runs incredibly quietly once the driver is up and running in Windows. Obviously, we had to make a few compromises with this testing procedure because Inno3D has opted to change from a four-pin fan header to a two-pin one, meaning that some of this temperature difference could easily be down to the different pieces of silicon.

Final Thoughts...

There are a number of things to like about Inno3D’s GeForce 8600 GTS iChiLL Xstriker3 graphics card, but it’s not all plain sailing. However, just about all of the shortcomings are not Inno3D’s fault – let’s start with the good.

The obvious thing to start with would be the cooling solution – this appears to be well executed and performed well during our evaluation. Producing low temperatures is only half of the story though, because Inno3D manages to achieve this without filling its surroundings with a horrible whine. It’s by no means silent, but I would class its noise emissions as very quiet and in the grand scheme of things, you are unlikely to be able to hear it once it’s installed in a chassis.

We also love the aesthetics of the card too – the black and gold DVI ports, the boltgun PCI bracket and the overall combination of colours. However, the one thing that we’ve continually moaned about is that Inno3D has opted to continue using a green PCB. It’s a shame, because this spoils the overall look of the card a little.

The extended warranty is another thing that makes this card worthy of consideration over a standard GeForce 8600 GTS too and the premium over one of Inno’s run-of-the-mill 8600 GTSes is well worth it if you’re likely to use the card for more than a couple of years.

In the past GeForce 8600 GTS reviews we've done, the problem has been that there was just not enough performance on offer for the asking price. However, what Inno3D has managed to do is reduce the asking price to a more reasonable level – £114.00 (inc. VAT) is much more attractive than the £140+ some partners seem to want for a pre-overclocked GeForce 8600 GTS.

At the higher price, you only have to look at the GeForce 8800 GTS 320MB’s performance and measure that against its £165 asking price to realise that you’d be a mug to spend £140 on a GeForce 8600 GTS. Thankfully though, Inno3D’s card isn’t as expensive as other pre-overclocked 8600 GTSes and it actually comes in at a tempting price point if you’re looking for an all-rounder.

Where gaming is concerned, the Radeon X1950 Pro will perform as well as Inno3D’s iChiLL Xstriker3 and in some cases better than it too – you can pick one of ATI’s previous generation mid-range cards for around £85 (inc. VAT). Of course, it’s worth remembering that the X1950 Pro doesn’t have DirectX 10 support, but we think that’s a bit of a moot point and more of a checkbox feature given the performance penalty for running current games in DX10 mode.

However, if you are looking at something that has all of the HD video acceleration features that are available in the current generation’s mid-range hardware, you’ll probably take the small performance penalty in games to compensate for the massively improved performance in HD video playback. Therefore we’re not going to make an outright recommendation to buy this particular graphics card, but it’s one to consider if the usage model outlined above fits you.

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