Nvidia’s newest graphics chip,is the EVGA e-GeForce 8600 GTS, and it costs about $200. This 256MB card is made for 3D gaming performance as well as superior HD video playback.

We found it delivers on the video quality and we’re disappointed in it’s value as a gaming card compared with other cards still on the market. The next-generation of ATI’s Radeon cards could also present an enticing alternative for both gaming and video quality when they come out this May .

They suggest us to use it on Windows XP because of more faster than other operation system-based card, which you can get for less, or wait to see how ATI’s next batch stacks up against Nvidia’s GeForce 8800 GTS. That card is much faster than this new one. If you’re interested in watching HD video via your PC, the 8600 GTS’ output quality might be enough to sway you, but again, those new Radeons are right around the corner.

Like most cards under $300 or so, the GeForce 8600 GTS has 256MB of onboard DDR3 memory, in this case clocked to 1,000MHz, with the chip core itself set to 675MHz.

In addition, like most 3D cards in this price range, the GeForce 8600 GTS is a single-slot PCI Express card, meaning that it only takes up the space of a single expansion slot. But unlike similar cards from the previous generation, the GeForce 8600 GTS is one of the first to require a direct connection to your PC’s power supply unit (PSU). Nvidia recommends a common-enough 350-watt PSU for a single card, and a 450-watt unit for pairing two together in SLI mode. Most of Nvidia’s board partners, EVGA among them, even include adapter cables for PCs that don’t have the requisite internal power inputs.

What the GeForce 8600 GTS has that its higher-end cousins and those older cards don’t is Nvidia’s PureVideoHD 2.0 technology. Some experience with Nvidia’s original PureVideo HD decoding software, some persons are very impressed with the quality of HD video output under PureVideo 2.0. One of the main complaints with Nvidia’s original version of PureVideo HD was that it would lose almost all detail in heavily shadowed areas. Some of the testers still think that a dedicated Blu-ray player and high-definition TV combo provides a sharper HD image, but the GeForce 8600 GTS gets it very close and should please all but the most sensitive movie watcher.

As much as testers like Nvidia’s HD output with this new card, ATI’s new cards could very well emerge with the win in the home theater PC market.

A few weeks ago some testers reported that ATI plans to integrate an audio chip into its forthcoming low- and midrange graphics cards. The idea was that for those cards with a built-in HDMI port, on a motherboard equipped with an HD audio chip, the owner will be able to pump both audio and video from your PC out of a single output, with no extra internal or external cable clutter. This EVGA e-Geforce 8600 GTS has a two DVI outputs, so you couldn’t output audio with it anyway, but we do expect that other 8600 GTS cards will have an HDMI option. With no audio chip though, you’ll need to patch the signal into the card from your PC’s audio chip. Connecting the cables is only a minor hassle, but that difference could be a feather in ATI’s cap when its new cards hit the market.

Test bed configurations:

Intel Core 2 Extreme X6800; Intel 975XBX2 motherboard; 2GB Corsair XMX Memory (two at 1GB each); 160GB Seagate 7,200rpm hard drive; Windows XP SP2; Drivers: ATI Catalyst 7.3, Forceware 93.71, Forceware 97.94 (GeForce 8800 GTS), Forceware 158.16 (GeForce 8600 GT and 8600 GTS)