Today NVIDIA has officially released their GeForce 8500 and 8600 mid-range ($129-$229) DX10 graphics cards. The new GeForce 8600 GTS, 8600 GT and 8500 GT features Shader Model 4.0 support, GigaThread technology and NVIDIA's Quantum Effects physics processing technology. The addition of NVIDIA's Lumenex engine to the mainstream sector provides value-conscious buyers with 128-bit floating point HDR rendering and anti-aliasing levels of 16x.

The new mainstream flagship is the GeForce 8600 GTS, which takes the spot previously held by the GeForce 7900 GS. NVIDIA slots the GeForce 8600 GTS below the GeForce 8800 GTS 320MB, which currently occupies the $299-$329 price points. GeForce 8600 GTS based products fill in the $199-229 price points. GeForce 8600 GTS-based products feature 32-stream processors clocked at 1.45 GHz. NVIDIA has set the reference core and memory clock speeds at 675 MHz and 1.0 GHz, respectively.

Catering to the $149-159 price points is the slightly detuned GeForce 8600 GT. GeForce 8600 GT-based products feature 32-stream processors as with the GeForce 8600 GTS; however, NVIDIA detunes the shader clock down to 1.18 GHz. Reference core and memory clock speeds are set at 540 MHz and 700 MHz, respectively. NVIDIA slots the GeForce 8500 GT at the bottom of its new mainstream product lineup. The new GeForce 8500 GT fills in the $89-$129 price points with its 16-stream processors. NVIDIA clocks the 16-stream processors at 900 MHz on the value-oriented offering. Reference core and memory clock speeds of the GeForce 8500 GT are 450 MHz and 400 MHz, respectively.

Guru3D tested the XFX 8600 GT (XXX) and GTS (XXX) boards, the BFG 8600 GTS (OC) board, the Point of View 8600 GTS (EXO) board and from Galaxy Technology both a customized GeForce 8600 GT and GTS. Hexus.net and NVNews have posted a reviews on the EVGA and MSI GeForce 8600 GTS. EliteBastards reviewed the Foxconn GeForce 8600 GTS. And the chaps over at TweakTown take a look at the XFX GeForce 8600GTS XXX:

By the end of my benchmarking, I was slightly disappointed -not sure if I should expect more or what but the 8600GTS just didn't "wow" me like I thought it would. When thinking about it for longer, I came to the simple conclusion that the 8600GTS didn't "wow" me because of the huge amount of graphics cards we test. You become so use to hitting the "benchmark" button on 3DMark06, then turning back 10 minutes later and seeing a score in excess of 10000 marks and then you see something under it and lose excitement about the lower performing product. Having said that though, nVidia's GeForce 8600GTS is a fantastic graphics card; it does exactly what it's supposed - it gives budget conscious users the opportunity to climb into the DX10 gaming arena for when PC games like Crysis, UT2007 and Alan Wake are released later this year.

AnandTech tested the 8600 GT and the 8600 GTS too:

For users who own 7600 GT, 7900 GS, or X1950 Pro hardware, we can't recommend an upgrade to one of these parts. Even though more performance would be better, those who are still searching for hardware to buy in the $150 - $200 range will certainly not be disappointed with 8600 based graphics. These cards aren't quite the silver bullet NVIDIA had with the 6600 series, but DX10 and great video processing are nothing to sneeze at. The features the 8600 series support do add quite a bit of value where pure framerate may be lacking.

These cards are a good fit for users who have a 1280x1024 panel, though some of the newer games may need to have a couple settings turned down from the max to run smoothly. At the same time, NVIDIA hasn't won the battle yet, as AMD has yet to unveil their DX10 class hardware. With performance that's just on par with the price points NVIDIA set, they've left themselves a little open this time around. We'll have to wait and see if AMD can capitalize