Zotac Passive GeForce 8600 GT ZONE Edition Review

Zotac’s new GeForce 8600 GT ZONE Edition is running without any form of active cooling. It also has an audio input which allows you to feed external audio into the HDMI stream which is output via DVI plus an adapter, which is included of course. For a price of $129, or about $10 over a regular 8600 GT you will get several added benefits for very little extra cost.

Performance-wise there are no suprises, the card performs like a typical midrange card with support for DX10 and Shader Model 4.0 (not that anybody would need that today or in the next months). Overclocking potential is slim, but can still deliver nice extra performance - if you ensure proper cooling.

With a price premium of about $10 this card is certainly worth its money especially if you consider that you can finally get rid of the annoying fan noise of your video card. With that price difference you can barely buy an aftermarket passive cooler. Even if you found one you would have to install it yourself, which voids your warranty.

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