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Quake 4 is slightly more 'forgiving' on the GeForce 8600 series. The GeForce 8600GTS is faster than the Radeon X1950 Pro without AA and AF and is only slower by a few frames with AA and AF enabled. The GeForce 8600GT is obviously slower than both cards, but it still provides high enough frame rates at 1024 x 768 with AA and AF. The extra premium you pay for the GeForce 8600GTS shows it value when we raise the resolution to 1280 x 1024 - the GeForce 8600GTS still manage to offer frame rates above 30 fps with AA and AF while the GeForce 8600GT does not. Of course, if you're planning to use 1600 x 1200 with these cards, best not to enable AA at all. Are they any good at 1600 x 1200 without AA and AF? The GeForce 8600GTS is faster than the Radeon X1950 Pro here, while the GeForce 8600GT is still able to offer high enough frame rates  - minimum frame rates remains above 30 fps.

With the GeForce 8600GTS, we were able to use 1280 x 1024 with 4x AA and 16x AF, while we're limited to 1024 x 768 with 4x AA and 16x AF with the GeForce 8600GT. Now, don't fret. Budget conscious gamers who opt for the GeForce 8600GT may still be able to get more out of their card. There's a possibility we can still have high enough frame rates on the 1280 x 1024 if we dropped down to 2x MSAA (and maintain 16xAF with minimal performance penalty).

8600GTS

	1xAF (Trilinear)	2xAF	4xAF	8xAF	16xAF
1024
Min	107	107	107	108	104
Avg	185.29	181.83	182.69	180.77	180.11
Max	260	251	235	238	252
1280
Min	69	70	66	68	68
Avg	126.65	125.71	125.4	122.78	124.74
Max	182	183	182	173	176
1600
Min	49	48	47	48	47
Avg	90.63	92.11	91.46	89.35	88.97
Max	137	140	135	137	136

8600GT

	1xAF (Trilinear)	2xAF	4xAF	8xAF	16xAF
1024
Min	84	84	83	82	88
Avg	149.67	150.23	149.48	146.08	148
Max	216	219	203	202	202
1280
Min	53	51	53	51	52
Avg	99.46	98.87	98.02	96.89	95.29
Max	152	149	146	147	145
1600
Min	36	39	34	35	36
Avg	72.34	71.75	71.07	70.03	69.76
Max	116	116	116	111	114

Performance penalty with anisotropic filtering is again minimal and only rises noticeably when we hit 1600 x 1200 on both cards. This is actually a big improvement from the previous generation. NVIDIA's previous generation of cards offer slightly worse filtering than the competition and now, they're able to offer minimal performance penalty, high quality anisotropic filtering on a budget SKU. Now you can have very high filtering quality and maintain reasonable frame rates at 1600 x 1200 with a US$ 130 GeForce 8600GT.

8600GTS

	Without AA	2xAA	4xAA
1024
Min	109	75	51
Avg	185.9	138.63	102.02
Max	269	198	168
1280
Min	70	47	33
Avg	127.21	88.63	65.92
Max	192	139	124
1600
Min	49	30	23
Avg	91.12	64.48	47.3
Max	138	110	100

8600GT

	Without AA	2xAA	4xAA
1024
Min	87	56	36
Avg	151.53	108.17	75.43
Max	228	167	137
1280
Min	52	41	22
Avg	100.1	68.45	48.44
Max	153	118	102
1600
Min	36	25	16
Avg	71.03	48.78	33.21
Max	120	89	75

4x MSAA is definitely too much for the GeForce 8600GT - the card is about a third slower on average than the GeForce 8600GTS.  As we suspected, you can actually get away with 2x MSAA at 1280 x 1024 with the GeForce 8600GT. Yes, it's no 4x MSAA, but its better than no AA at all and do remember the GeForce 8600GTS is being sold at around US$ 250. Although the GeForce 8600GT has lower average fps than its faster sibling, you actually get about the same level of minimum frame rates (41 to 47 fps). After all, in real gameplay, Quake 4 frame rates are capped at 60 fps.

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