Are you in the market for a high quality, affordable graphics card? Then look no further than nVidia for their top of the line graphics processors. This review will specifically delve into the 8500 GT video card and how it compares to its predecessor, the 8600 GT. Read on to see how it stacks up against its older brother and see which is the better buy.
Once again we are taking a look at an nVidia graphics card. This time we are going down a step to the lower end of the mid-range market. We will take a look at the 8500 GT. What perked up my interest in this card was the price. The 8600 GT I reviewed earlier was going for roughly a little over $100. The 8500 GT runs you a bit less at about $70. Is the 8600 GT that much better for only $40 more?
It's time to take a closer look at the GPU. Compared to the 8600 GT, it has half the number of pipelines -- 16 as compared to 32 -- and also half as many ROPs, four instead of eight. This leaves a significant gap between the two video cards. The clocks on both the memory and core are significant. Both have the same amount of onboard memory (256 MB).
Due to the 8600 GT’s significantly faster RAM, it sports the benefits of closing in on double the memory bandwidth. This is because the 8500 GT offers GDDR2 and the 8600 GT has GDDR3. We can hope to see whether overclocking closes this gap, but I don’t think it will ever catch up.
Features
Full Microsoft® DirectX® 10 Support
NVIDIA® SLI™ Technology
NVIDIA® unified architecture with GigaThread™ technology
KEITHLEE2/home/servers/www.devhardware.com/www/zdeconfigurator/configs/INFUSIONSOFT_OVERLAY.php/home/servers/www.devhardware.com/www/zdeconfigurator/configs/ OFFLOADING INFUSIONSOFTLOADING INFUSIONSOFT 1debug:overlay status: OFF overlay not displayed overlay cookie defined: TI_CAMPAIGN_1012_D OVERLAY COOKIE set: status off
