Before starting our test, lets find out where the Gigabyte 8600GTS stand in terms of absolute power compared with other models and SLI setups. At 3D Mark 05, we got a score of 11473 that places the card in the middle, behind the Asus 8600GTS Top. This was expected since Asus 8600GTS Top comes with both GPU and memory pre-overclocked by default.

Passing to 3D Mark 06, both Gigabyte 8600GTS Passive and Asus 8600GTS Top are very close, with a difference of 128 marks.