As a previous bulker of the 8600GT.. Let me tell you one thing..
If you're looking at future performance on DX10, go for 8600GT/
If you only want raw DX10 performance and you're gonna change your card, say, maybe next year, save your money and grab a cheap 7600GT instead.
interestingly, MAYBE due to driver issues, the 7600GT outperforms the 8600GT in quite a few gaming benchmark, but it's totally not that case for 3dmark benchmarking.
http://www.legionhardware.com/document.php?id=637&p=2Not too sure what's wrong though.. hmm..
Interestingly vr-zone posted that 8600GT pawns 7600GT that much in NFS Carbon. heh. My friend tried it and the difference is only within 5fps. Maybe difference in platform kut. *shrugs*