EVGA GeForce 8600 GTS 512MB GDDR3 PCI Express x16 SLI Support Graphics Card 512-P2-N773-AR

Pros: This is a really nice card (evga never disappoints). The included Quake is a nice touch.

Cons: I wish I'd done a little more homework before purchasing - turns out that 512MB is overkill for this card. The 256MB is just right.

Overall Review: Next time I'll read a few more reviews before purchasing, but this is still a pretty good card.

Pros: Overall, not a terrible card for the money. It's quite good for high-def video decoding, substantially better than the 7900GT in my other workstation. The mild overclocking capability of this card isn't a huge pro, especially since the stock cooling isn't stellar, but it can potentially gain you a few fps. Has a few advanced shader capabilities, but this is nearly moot anyway due to the narrow memory path.

It came with ETQW, which is actually a big plus for me since I was planning on buying it anyway thanks to native Linux support. And speaking of Linux, Nvidia's binary drivers worked perfectly with this card. I've seen no memory leaks, performance hiccups or anything else which might echo the complaints of Vista users about Nvidia's support for this card. Rock solid, which is what keeps me coming back to Nvidia.

Cons: Nvidia crippled this card quite thoroughly when they decided it'd have a 128-bit memory path. It struggles to stand toe-to-toe with the 7900GT, which is slightly less in cost. The 7950 actually outperforms it soundly on most benchmarks, and happens to be a much better overclocker as well, if that's your thing. For raw 3D performance, look elsewhere.

Overall Review: For solid 3D performance in this price range, your money would be better spent on one of the better-equipped 79xx cards. Their 256-bit memory path stomps all over the outmoded 128-bit memory buss of the 6800-series. And of course, if you have money to throw around, the 8800 series makes this card look pretty paltry indeed. If you're really into Hi-Def video though, the sacrifice in 3D performance vs the 79xx would probably be worth it to you, since it really is great for hi-def video decompression. Otherwise, this hard is pretty tough to recommend.

DirectX 10 is mostly gimmick, no matter what any marketing campaigns say. It should come as no shock that this this card and its touted DX10 capabilities are more hollow marketing than actual benefit. It's all pretty moot for me anyway, since I don't even run Windows, but I'm simply suggesting that you'd do well to avoid swallowing the hype. Look at real world gaming benchmarks, not synthetic tests. They'll tell a totally different story.