(Credit:
Buy.com)
The last time I wrote about a GeForce 8600 video card, it was the GT variety, and it was selling for $99.99 plus shipping. If you decided to wait, good move: Buy.com now has the even better GeForce 8600 GTS for $69.99 shipped (after a $20 mail-in rebate).
Why is the GTS better than the GT? Simple: It's faster. It has a faster core clock and faster onboard memory (256MB of it). That's important if you're into power-hungry games like BioShock and Call of Duty 4.
The PNY GeForce 8600GTS card requires a PCI Express slot, a 6-pin power connector, and a 350-watts-or-better power supply. If your system meets those requirements, this is a seriously sweet deal on a powerful video card. Look around: Most vendors sell the same card (or similar ones) for twice as much. So even if you skip the rebate (which ends March 25), you're still getting a steal.
(Credit:
TigerDirect)
BioShock. Crysis. Call of Duty 4. These and other suh-weet new games require a generous helping of video power. If your system is more than a couple years old, or you bought a budget desktop with an integrated graphics processor, you'll have to run your games at low resolutions without any of those dazzling eye-candy effects. That's assuming they'll run at all: Many of them require a video card with at least 128MB of RAM.
I recently upgraded my aging Pentium 4 box with a GeForce 8600 GT-based video card, much like the one currently available from TigerDirect: It's the XFX GeForce 8600 GT XXX with 256MB of RAM, DirectX 10 support, an SLI interface (in case you later decide to pair it with a second card for some serious graphics horsepower), and a copy of the excellent wargame Company of Heroes. You supply the PCI Express slot; it'll supply the high-res gaming goodness.
Your mileage may vary, of course, but I've been running BioShock on my widescreen monitor with nearly all the effects amped up, and it's smooth as silk. (And what a fantastic game, by the way.) The XFX card will run you $99.99 plus shipping, after a $30 mail-in rebate. Definitely a worthwhile upgrade, though gaming experts would likely suggest spending another $75 or so on the GTS version. For casual gamers like me, however, this is a plenty powerful card.
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