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It is almost impossible to single out a clear-cut winner in this round-up. Each card has it's own unique feature-set; and each feature-set will appeal to some people more than others. However, one point that the benchmarks did indicate was how well the GT's stack up against the GTS cards. While the GT cards sell for roughly 75% of the price of the GTS cards, they offer performance in the same ballpark as the GTS's. But for the moment, lets put aside the GT's, and take a look at how well the GTS cards did.

If it were only down to the most FPS, than the choice would be easy: consistently, the Asus EN8600 GTS TOP out-performed its competitors in this round-up.  With a clock speed 75 MHz over the other GTS cards, it is no surprise it topped most of the benchmarks. The only benchmark that this card did not win was the F.E.A.R benchmark, where it was narrowly edged out by the MSI NX8600 GTS. The EN8600 GTS TOP delivered good performance in all our benchmarks, and it will probably be enough power to handle all of awesome-looking big-title DirectX 10 games coming out in 2007, like BioShock and Hellgate:London. Keeping in mind that if you want to game at resolutions any higher than 1024x768 with the eye-candy cranked, you'll probablly want a bettter card. But with the sppeds we saw, the overclocked Asus card continues the worthy legacy expected from Asus's 'Top Overclocking Performer' brand.

But when you consider the price-to-performance ratio, it is easy to like what the XFX 8600 GTS brings to the table. It often retails for about $20 less than the Asus EN8600 GTS T.O.P, but almost matches its performance. Although in almost all the benchmarks the XFX GTS came second behind the Asus GTS T.O.P, it only lagged behind by a slim margin of a few FPS. And the fact that this XFX 8600 GTS is bundled with Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter really makes this card seem like the better deal of the quicker, 8600 GTS cards.

The benchmarks indicated that the MSI NX8600 GTS OC came third in our overall performance hierarchy. Nonetheless, this card is still a solid performer. Offering the least-expensive GTS option in our round-up, and performing only slightly behind the XFX 8600 GTS, makes the NX8600 GTS OC attractive for gamers looking to get the most bang for their buck. Especially if you already own GRAW, or the game does not appeal to you very much, then the MSI NX8600 GTS OC makes a good choice for an upgrade. Some might find that the MSI NX8600 a touch on the loud side, but with the easy option of reducing the fan speed, this drawback is effectively negated. Keep in mind though, these cards willbe living inside a case too, so sound may not be the deciding factor. 
 
But: should you even go with a 8600 GTS at all? That's a tough call. When you consider that a savvy price-hunter might find a 320 MB 8800 GTS for under the $300 mark, it makes it harder to recommend the Asus EN8600 GTS T.O.P or XFX 8600 GTS cards. When you compare the benchmarks from this round-up to the benchmarks from our Asus GeForce 8800 GTS review, you can see that the 8800 GTS class runs circles around the 8600 -- sometimes offering as much as double the frames-per-second. The slower and cheaper 128 bit memory-interface of the 8600 family of cards really cuts into their performance. So, that leaves with you the decision: how much am I willing to pay for performance? If you were hoping to upgrade to something that will allow you to game at 1280x1024 with the eye candy cranked, the 8600 GTS cards might let you down -- it would probably make more sense to spend the extra money to get a 320 MB 8800 GTS class card; or, if DirectX 10 was not a deal-breaker, you might even consider a 7950 GT.   

If your gaming budget is more limited, look at picking up a 8600 GT, or maybe going with the MSI NX8600 GTS. The MSI GTS offers good performance for its price, and the GT cards deliver solid performance. For under a $150, you get a whole lot of video card with the 8600 GT's. So -- which GT to go with? Well, in this round-up, in all but one of the benchmarks, the XFX GT outperformed the Gigabyte GT. But again, you can't really pick a clear winner here. The Gigabyte GT runs completely silent, which is a plus; and the Gigabyte GT comes with Supreme Commander, which is a stellar game to be included at this low of a price-point.

For this assortment of cards, in the end, it's really just going to come down to what you want, and how much you are willing to spend to get it. If you are looking for a relatively inexpensive, solid upgrade solution, you can't go wrong with the XFX 8600 GT. If you budgeted to spend another $40 or $50 dollars or so, then the MSI NX8600GTS will deliver good performance for a reasonable price. If you want even more power -- well, it depends how much you want to spend. The performance offered by the 8600 GTS family does seem a little underwhelming -- so this might be a great excuse to set your sights a bit higher, and go for another option; or, maybe to wait a little bit longer, to see what kind of power the ATI HD 2600 XT can offer.