12-Way NVIDIA GeForce 8600 GTS 256MB Shootout

The Illusion of Choice. Given that our article today is a blockbuster of a shootout involving up to twelve graphics cards, you may be slightly bemused by our choice of title. Yes, despite the variety of NVIDIA's GeForce 8600 GTS cards we have gathered for this article, ranging from the standard to overclocked versions and featuring disparate cooling solutions (though many are reference models), there's this nagging feeling that there really isn't much of a choice when it comes to mainstream DirectX 10 graphics cards. As most of you are aware, ATI has not yet launched its competing DirectX 10 products, meaning that for the last six months at least, NVIDIA has had virtually no competition when it comes to DirectX 10 compatible graphics cards.