nV News Deals Shop Archive Search Files Forum Feed Articles IRC Chat GeForce.com


Search Site
Ads by Google
NVIDIA Stuff
Executive Profiles
NVIDIA Drivers
Laptop Drivers
Beta Drivers
Archived Drivers
Driver Feedback
GPU Computing
OpenCL Computing
Direct Compute
Desktop Products
Workstation GPUs
Desktop GPUs
Laptop GPUs
Netbook GPUs
Handheld Devices
Portable Media
Automotive Devices
Server Solutions
Application Engines
Apple Products
Game Consoles
System Tools
Power Packs
Get A Balanced PC
Pure Video SD
Pure Video HD
Extreme HD
GeForce PC Kit
NVIDIA 3D Vision
NVIDIA Cool Stuff
NVIDIA Software
NVIDIA PhysX
NVIDIA CUDA Zone
GPU Venture Zone
NVIDIA nZone
NVIDIA SLI Zone
SLI App Request
SLI Profile Patches
Developer Zone
NVIDIA Support
FreeBSD Support
Linux Support
Solaris Support
NVISION '08
GPU Conference '09
NVIDIA at CES '10
PAX East 2010 1
NVIDIA nTersect
NVIDIA Newsroom
NVIDIA at Facebook
NVIDIA at Flickr
NVIDIA at Twitter
NVIDIA at YouTube
NVCUDA at YouTube
NVIDIA Online Store
1 March 26, 2010
EVGA Stuff
EVGA E-LEET
EVGA Precision
GPU Voltage Tuner
SLI Enhancement
EVGA Gear
Reviews and Awards
Articles
GeForce GTX 295
GeForce GTX 280
GeForce GTX 260
GeForce GT 240
GeForce 9800 GTX
GeForce 9800 GX2
GeForce 9600 GT
GeForce 8800 Ultra
GeForce 8800 GTX
GeForce 8800 GTS
GeForce 8800 GT
GeForce 8600 GTS
GeForce 8500 GT
GeForce 7950 GX2
GeForce 7950 GT
GeForce 7900 GTX
GeForce 7900 GS
GeForce 7800 GTX
Watercooling Project
My Book 500GB
Raptor Hard Drive
Guide To Doom 3
Other Stuff
Game Releases
  By Date
  Alphabetical
Litigation
  FTC vs. Intel Corp.
Steam
  Hardware Survey
CES 2010
  Press Conference
GF100 White Papers
  GPU Architecture
  GF100 Compute

XFX GeForce 8500 GT Review - Page 1 of 5

INTRODUCTION

On April 17th, NVIDIA launched its mainstream line-up of Graphics Processing Units (GPU) based on their performance-leading GeForce 8 architecture by announcing the GeForce 8600 GTS, the GeForce 8600 GT and the GeForce 8500 GT.

NVIDIA GeForce Logo

The coup de grace delivered by announcement of these video cards is that more than half of NVIDIA's full top-to-bottom product line-up is now Windows Vista and DirectX 10-ready while their competitor has yet to launch a product in this field.

Sponsors

As is the case with the rest of the recently-announced mainstream line-up, the GeForce 8500 GT is manufacturer using an 80nm fabrication process, which allows its more performance-oriented brethren to offer higher core clock speeds than are attainable on the older 90nm fabrication. However, high core and memory clock speeds are not to be found on the GPUs targeted at the lower end of the performance spectrum, but that's not to say that this GPU can't still pack a punch!

GeForce 8500 GT & 8600 GT Specifications

Here we see that although the 8500 GT and 8600 GT are within the same line-up, they are two distinct and very different chips. NVIDIA differentiates its chips by price and performance. A look at the above chart displays a few key performance differentiators between the 8500-class and the 8600-class: use of DDR2 rather than GDDR3, half the stream processors, and a much lower fill rate.

One of the key features of the GeForce 8 Series mainstream line-up is the addition of PureVideo2 engine to NVIDIA's PureVideo HD technology. The new PureVideo2 engine allows the GPU to offload 100% of the processing required for decoding high-definition (HD) video playback content encoded in VC-1 and H264 such as that found on Blu-ray and HD DVD. This will allow high-quality playback on mainstream CPUs, which might not have the processing power to handle HD content without skipping frames. Use of the PureVideo HD technology with the 8500 GT is currently only supported via the ForceWare drivers for Windows Vista. NVIDIA has stated that they expect to be adding PureVideo HD capabilities to the 8500 GT when running under Windows XP in June.

NVIDIA PureVideo

Next, we take a look at the XFX GeForce 8500 GT that we've been testing.

Next Page: XFX GeForce 8500 GT

Last Updated on September 27, 2009


Table of Contents

Advertisement

nV News - Copyright © 1998-2013.
Search Products
Search
for


Ads by Casale
Graphics Utilities
AMD GPU Clock Tool
ATITool
aTuner
EVGA Precision
EVGA Voltage Tuner
Gainward ExperTool
GPU-Shark
GPU Voltage Tuner
Fraps
FurMark
GLview
GPU Caps Viewer
GPU Shark
GPU-Z
MSI Afterburner
nHancer
NiBiTor
NVClock (Linux)
NvTempLogger
NVTray
PowerStrip
RivaTuner
SLI Profile Tool
3DCenter Filter Test
3DMark Vantage
Add-In Partners
Albatron
ASUS
AXLE
BFG Technologies
BIOSTAR
Chaintech
Colorful
ELSA
EVGA
GAINWARD
GALAXY
GIGABYTE
FORSA
FOXCONN
Inno3D
Jaton
Leadtek
MSI
Palit
PNY
Point of View
Prolink
SPARKLE
XFX
ZOGIS
ZOTAC
For Developers
ACM SIGGRAPH
AMD
DevMaster.net
flipCode
Gamasutra
GameDev.net
GPGPU
Intel
Microsoft
CiteSeer
NeHe Productions
NVIDIA
OpenGL.org
Programmers Heaven
Real-Time Rendering
Stanford Graphics
3dRender.com
Associates
Benchmark Reviews
Fraps
GeForce Italia
GPU Review
Hardware Pacers
LaptopVideo2Go
MVKTECH
News3D (NVITALIA)
OutoftheBoxMods
OSNN.net
Overclocker Cafe
PC Extreme
PC Gaming Standards
PhysX Links & Info
TestSeek
3DChip (German)
8Dimensional