Gainward Bliss 8600GT 1024Mb Edition

When we received the package with the 8600GT 1024Mb our first thought was that there had been a mix-up, since the outside looked exactly like that of the Bliss 8600GT box we had in our hands a few weeks back. A closer inspection revealed a small “1024MB” sticker on the top-right side of the box and some minor changes to the text under the name of the card. The contents didn’t change all that much either, so we found two CDs (driver and DVD software), the install booklet, a TV adapter cable and a single DVI-to-VGA converter.

Just like the original Bliss 8600GT the 1024Mb Edition uses a dual slot cage design, aimed at improving the airflow around the GPU. Under the cage we find a fairly average cooler, which is however still too big for the card to fit into a single slot. The bottom of the card is equipped with a cooler for the memory modules, something that was not needed on the regular version of the card due to fact that all of the modules were fitted to the front. Upon closer inspection we noticed that one of the coolers wasn’t touching two of the memory modules – pressing it against them only fixed this for a few minutes.

The GPU of the Bliss 8600GT 1024Mb is running at 594MHz, which makes it slightly faster that a stock 8600GT. The shader clock is far from stock speeds as well, ticking over at 1458MHz. That said the memory is not running at the reference 700/1400MHz, but at a significantly slower  500/1000MHz. Considering that the HYB18T512161BF-20 modules are rated at precisely 500MHz this doesn’t come as a big surprise.

Other than the two DVI connectors being red there are no surprises when it comes to the connectivity of the card. Both of the connectors are of the Dual-DVI kind and the neighboring TV-Out connector is capable of outputting an HD signal.