One smaller company I always try so hard for these days to be included in launch articles is Galaxy Technology. As small as they really are they always bring innovation and something extra into the market. Surely they can improve on stuff like after-sales but the products themselves I think are reputable. I wish the retail channel in Europe and USA would finally see and accept this.

Galaxy Technology submitted two cards. And they really tried hard to get these products all the way from Hong Kong towards our lab. Get this: 24 hours prior to launch we finally received the cards. Barely in time, but we have been able to include them.

A brief introduction to the cards. Galaxy has made its own PCB layout and hey did we expect anything else? They come slightly pre-overclocked. Let's have a peek:

For the 8600GTS,

• Core/Memory clocks: 700 MHz and 1000 MHz (1ns) respectively
• The GTS will come along with a Zalman pure copper heat pipe fan
• 2-phase power (6-pin connector).
• 6 layer Blue PCB

Galaxy Technology GeForce 8600 GTS (Premium edition)

Good to note is that Galaxy is including a little IC on the PCB that can correlate with some software they are developing. It's called SmartPanel and basically is a controller suite. It's not yet finalized, but is looking interesting. The Software GUI will allow you to adjust stuff like fan speeds, GPU and memory clocks. Yet you can also preset alarms at a certain temperature with a system shutdown. Lovely to know is that it will also function with SLI. That means temp readings of both GPUs and what not. Something to look forward to for sure.

For the 8600 GT,

• Core/Memory clocks: 600/800 (reference is 540/700)
• This card will come along with a Coolmaster copper fan
• 6 layer Blue PCB

Galaxy Technology GeForce 8600 GT (Premium edition)Furthermore in the box you'll find:

• analog component HDTV bracket
• composite cable
• driver CD
• manual

So as you can see, Galaxy focused a lot more on customization, something we like to see very much. The downside is that such a thing costs money. So the more expensive coolers, PCB design have an effect on after sales. In this case you'll receive standard warranty of a year. Regardless, as you'll notice in the photo-shoot, they are very nice looking and performing boards. Especially the looks of the GT are awesome.

Point of View

I'll leave the "Point of View" jokes at rest today (Ed: Why don't I believe you?) but... they do have a different point of view. :) POV submitted their Exo edition version of their graphics cards. Now Point of View is likely to sell more "standard" clocked boards then Exo edition, but pay good attention to the performance you'll see today. The Exo version was showing very good performance thanks to its 725 MHz core frequency and get this, 1100 MHz memory frequency. I already explained to you that the GT/GTS cards are really limited with the 128-bit memory bus, so any improvement in memory bandwidth will have a direct overall effect on performance. The benchmarks will show that.

Included in the box you'll see the following

• Exo edition GeForce 8600 GTS
• S.t.a.l.k.e.r full game
• manual
• Driver CD
• VGA->DVI dongle
• analog component HDTV cable (RCA 3-way)

I had to verify as it was not finalized then I received this card. The bundle is bloody brilliant; the Exo edition is going to be bundled with S.t.a.l.k.e.r! Now that's a seriously hot title to include. And you know what? I'll include some S.t.a.l.k.e.r. benchmark results in this review.

Furthermore Point of View offers an excellent warranty on all of its products. All Graphics Cards have a 3 year warranty.

Point of View GeForce 8600 GTS EXO edition 256MB