Overview
Passively cooled cards are great for quiet system but typically, passive cooling means lower performance to get the GPU to run cool enough. XFX has been using their cool passive cooling system on some overclocked graphics cards with pretty good performance and the most recent of these cards in the passive cooled, Fatal1ty line is the 8600GT Fatal1ty. Read on to find out how well this card performs.

Hands-On Review

Features & Specifications
XFX clocked the XFX 8600 GT Fatal1ty at 620MHz on the core, 1355MHz on the shader clock and 1.7GHz on the memory. To compare the XFX 8600 GT XXX is clocked at 630MHz on the core, 1355 MHz on the shader clock and 1.6GHz on the memory. That gives the Fatal1ty version a slight edge in memory clock speed along with a passive cooling solution.

Test Machine
I am testing the XFX 8600 GT Fatal1ty on my standard test system with the following specifications:

• CPU- Intel QX6700
• Mainboard- XFX 680i
• RAM- PNY XLR8 2GB PC2-9384
• OS- Windows XP Pro SP2
• Display- Dell 30" UltraSharp 3007WFP-HC

Benchmarks & Testing
For testing purposes, I will be benchmarking the XFX 8600 GT Fatal1ty with 3DMark06, FEAR, Battlefield 2142 and Quake 4. The first test up is 3DMark06.

3DMark06
I ran 3DMark06 at default settings in the NVIDIA control panel and default settings in the application. The 3DMark06 test results were as follows:

• Total 3DMarks- 5682
• SM2.0- 2260
• HDR/SM3.0- 1945
• CPU- 4193
• Return to Proxycon- 17.721
• Firefly Forest- 14.947
• Canyon Flight- 17.131
• Deep Freeze- 21.775
• CPU1- 1.390
• CPU2- 2.024

To compare a few recently reviewed video cards, the Foxconn 8600 GT OC I reviewed this week scored 5355 3DMarks, the stock clocked Foxconn 8600 GTS scored 5812, and the overclocked EVGA 8600 GT Superclocked scored 5162 3DMarks.

FEAR
The next test up for the XFX 8600 GT Fatal1ty was with FEAR. I ran FEAR at a screen resolution of 1280 x 1024 with 16x AF, 4x AA, all settings max and soft shadows on. The test results were as follows:

• Min- 21
• Avg- 37
• Max- 68

The percentages show that only 7% of the time were frame rates below 25 fps, 64% of the time the frame rates were 25-40 fps and 29% of the time frame rates were greater than 40 fps.

Quake 4
Next up was Quake 4, which is still a killer on video cards. I ran the game at 1280 x 1024 on high detail setting with 16x AA and multi-core on. The results were recorded with Fraps while playing from the opening scene of the game to where you meet up with the squad and are sent back for the medic. Fraps recorded the following in game data:

• Min- 48 fps
• Avg- 60.129
• Max- 63 fps

Battlefield 2142
The final game test for the XFX 8600 GT Fatal1ty is Battlefield 2142. I ran BF2142 at 2048 x 1536 on high settings with 4x AA and used Fraps to record frame rate data on a single player map called 'Fall of Berlin.' Fraps recorded the following frame rate data:

• Min- 14
• Avg- 18.463
• Max- 23

Final Thoughts
Considering that the XFX 8600 GT Fatal1ty is a totally silent graphics card and you can get one for right at $150 online this card brings good performance for your video card dollar. The XFX 8600 GT Fatal1ty will play all the latest games, including upcoming DirectX 10 titles so you can be ready to game now and in the future. This would make an awesome media center video card.

Verdict

Pros

• Good price
• Good performance
• silent cooling solution

Cons

• Tall passive cooler may not fit inside low profile media center cases

Verdict
Passively cool graphics cards aren't a very common commodity and a passively cooled card with great performance is ever rarer, but the XFX 8600 GT Fatal1ty is just that. You can get your hands on this card for near $150 and the XFX 8600 GT Fatal1ty brings a lot of performance for your dollar making this card a sure fire addition to your short list of potential graphics cards for your budget DirectX 10 machine.

I4U Rating: 9.0/10