XFX 8600GT XXX

As always XFX did their homework and packed the card in a very attractive looking box. Although the packaging is small they still managed to pack in all of the standard connectors, the driver CD and a very well written manual. There is no extra software included in the package, which is a slight disappointment.

The XFX 8600GT XXX looks just like any other reference GT, not counting some very good looking color decisions. The most noticeable thing is the black PCB, which looks great against the white cooler. XFX decided to take it one notch higher and used black on the rest of the board as well, so the 8600GT XXX definitely looks better than any other GT out there. Hand in hand with these design choices come the amazing speeds the XXX card runs at. How does a 620MHz core and memory running at 1,6GHz sound? It sounds amazing to us, especially considering the minuscule and ultra quiet cooling solution.

The important question to answer here is whether XFX opted to include HDCP support with their 8600GT or not. As with every XFX product we reviewed so far there are no letdowns here either, so the answer is obviously yes – HDCP over DVI is part of the package. Other than that there are no surprises here – there are two dual-dvi connectors and an analog video connector, just as we are used to.