G84 takes DirectX 10 mainstream - Foxconn GeForce 8600 GTS review

Whenever NVIDIA releases a new mid-range part these days, the thought of them taking the performance crown for that price range is less of a possibility and more of a certainty.  For the majority of the past two generations, NVIDIA have dominated this sector of the discrete graphics industry with something approaching an iron fist, via first the GeForce 6600 GT, and then its successor the GeForce 7600 GT.

Only in very recent times have rival ATI finally managed to catch on to creating boards with that sprinkle of mid-range magic, courtesy of their RV570 core and the Radeon X1650 XT and (at a higher price point) Radeon X1950 PRO boards.  Thus, for the first time in a long while, NVIDIA actually have some real rivalry in this department.

However, today sees NVIDIA getting ready to roll out the mainstream big guns once again, bringing their DirectX 10 G8x architecture down to this lower price range.  The core is G84, the product name is the GeForce 8600 GTS, and its target is broadly the price point currently occupied by the GeForce 7900 GS and Radeon X1950 PRO.  There's no doubting that this board will have the features, but does it have the performance to match?  We've taken a look Foxconn's reference-based GeForce 8600 GTS board, and we'll be using it to find out.  So, read on to find out everything you want to know, first about G84 and the family of products under its umbrella, followed by the flagship board which uses this core.