8500 GT Video Card - Testing continued
(Page 4 of 4 )
F.E.A.R.
Lots can be said about this game. I have played through it twice and it still scares me every time I play it. From a computer perspective, this is a very intense game. The game has great physics and the best game lighting I have seen. It put the crunch on my previous computer.
At stock, the 8500 GT falls behind the 8600 GT by a noticeable difference. When I reran the benchmark with the overclocked speeds, we see that the overclocked 8500 GT actually beats the 8600 GT. I wouldn’t have guessed these results, but it’s a great feat for the 8500 GT.
Call of Juarez
This game probably isn’t known as well as the other games. So why would I consider it? It has the next generation programming in it. It runs on DX10 so our 8600 GT should do a lot better than non-DX10 cards. And this game also uses Shader Model 4.0. This will be the future of gaming, giving the game stunning graphics. It is a very demanding game for all computers, so this test should really show where this card stacks up against the rest.
The 8500 GT really lagged in this game. Even when overclocked it still fell well short of the 8600 GT. This shows that next generation gaming will show you the gaps in card speeds. Even though the overclocked speeds were higher than the 8600 GT, the stream processes made this a blow out for the 8600 GT.
Conclusion
I recently reviewed the 8600 GT, was surfing the Internet, and this card caught my interest. I decided to pick one up and see what this puppy could do. I was impressed. No it won’t ever be as good as the 8600 GT in every aspect. When overclocked we did see the margin shrink and even in F.E.A.R. we saw the 8500 GT come out on top.
Now comes the hard part: is this card worth it? To decide this we will take a look at the prices of these two cards. A 8500 GT can be bought for roughly $70 while the 8600 GT goes for a little over $100. I would think it would be worthwhile to get the 8600 GT over the 8500 GT, but if you're on a budget, the 8500 GT isn’t a bad investment.
| DISCLAIMER: The content provided in this article is not warranted or guaranteed by Developer Shed, Inc. The content provided is intended for entertainment and/or educational purposes in order to introduce to the reader key ideas, concepts, and/or product reviews. As such it is incumbent upon the reader to employ real-world tactics for security and implementation of best practices. We are not liable for any negative consequences that may result from implementing any information covered in our articles or tutorials. If this is a hardware review, it is not recommended to open and/or modify your hardware. |
| Recommended by Dev Hardware |
|---|
|
