NVIDIA GeForce 8500 GT graphics card: specifications, reviews

Budget representative of the eighth series of the last generation of video cards is unlikely to appeal to fans of resource-intensive dynamic games. However, it is the NVIDIA GeForce 8500 GT adapter that is destined to occupy the initial niche of discrete devices capable of competing with integrated solutions in the computer hardware market. In this article, the reader will become more familiar with an interesting and inexpensive (3000 rubles) graphics accelerator, learns its potential and technical characteristics. The owners' comments will help to see all the shortcomings and dignities that the manufacturer keeps silent about.

Features of the chip

The budgetary GPU GPU, created using 80 nm technology, has a fairly low power consumption - only 30 watts in maximum load mode. Therefore, users have a lot of questions about the potential for overclocking, which is capable of video card NVIDIA GeForce 8500 GT. Technical characteristics that determine performance are quite acceptable for working with non-resource-intensive dynamic games and applications:

• The graphics core operates at 450 MHz;
• The effective shader frequency is 900 MHz;
• GDDR3 memory uses a 128-bit bus and supports a frequency of 800 MHz;

Confuses only the amount of RAM installed on the graphics accelerator - only 512 MB. Sometimes on the market you can find video cards equipped with 256 megabytes of RAM, which, in general, causes confusion among many users. To work, the video adapter uses the PCIex16 bus, however, the first revision.

The main competitor

Any product that is present on the computer market is an improved analogue of competitors' products. Naturally, NVIDIA is fighting for the championship with the AMD brand. The video card NVIDIA GeForce 8500 GT, whose characteristics are more aimed at the budget segment, has a very interesting opponent on the market - ATI Radeon X1650 Pro. Two video adapters are almost identical in appearance and technical characteristics, which is why there are many disputes about plagiarism.

Both graphics accelerators are not demanding on power, their performance is at the same level, but many users managed to find one significant difference. It is connected with the built-in video capture controller (VIVO) from the AMD brand. Oddly enough, the NVIDIA manufacturer did not set a similar price, because many designers, editors and creative people watch video cards in the budget class.

The claimed accelerator

In whatever class the video adapter was present, it will always find a buyer, but, in addition to performance, many users are interested in another feature of the device - noiselessness in operation. After all, everyone wants to work and rest in silence, and not listen to the howls of the cooling fan at high speed. It is this demanded quality that attracts attention to the NVIDIA GeForce 8500 GT video card, the technical characteristics of which do not allow the graphics core to overheat.

The manufacturer has taken out a separate block all the batteries to the interface panel, leaving an even platform with a processor and memory. Naturally, many video card manufacturers took advantage of this by installing a copper or aluminum radiator instead of an active cooling system.

Factory-made

The budget representative has small physical dimensions (160x100x15 mm), which allow it to be placed in any system unit, including micro-ATX and Barabone. To mount the video card, only one slot is needed, which is quite handy when collecting multimedia computers that will use PCI expansion cards. Confuses only the poor interface panel in the NVIDIA GeForce 8500 GT video adapter. The characteristics of many users are no longer satisfactory, because the connectors VGA, DVI and TV-out are morally obsolete, and HDMI could improve the situation.

There are no questions on the power supply elements on the circuit board : the manufacturer installed conventional electrolytic capacitors, which practically do not heat up. On the phases and distribution of power, too, one can not reason, since with the energy supply of the graphic accelerator is complete. You can only note the strange location of the contact for connecting the cooling fan. It is located near the contacts PCIex16 and rests on the motherboard slot when installing the video card.

Hardware Features

The NVIDIA GeForce 8500 GT graphics accelerator draws attention to the fact that unlike integrated solutions, it supports all existing API libraries, and therefore is able to work with any software developer environment. An additional bonus is full compatibility with DirectX 10, however, after the release of the 12th version of this popular library this feature has lost its relevance.

Shaders model 4.0 and rendering in the dynamic range of 128 bits with floating point also look somehow inexpressive in the budget device. Therefore, when buying this video adapter, the user needs to think about choosing a powerful processor for his computer, because the performance of the accelerator can not be counted.

Oddities in the budget class

It's amazing that such an interesting product has not been recognized by the well-known video card manufacturers. Apparently, the lack of capacity in games and resource-intensive applications has simply cooled the interest of popular brands. In the world market NVIDIA GeForce 8500 GT is represented by only one dozen manufacturers, which offer the end user a noiseless solution for building a home platform or an office computer.

Technology corporations Elitegroup, MSI and Biostar decided not to waste time on the product, providing it with the cheapest cooling system and releasing it to the market. Taiwanese manufacturers ASUS and Gigabyte showed more respect and made minor improvements to the graphics accelerator. First, a unique cooling system on a copper base was created at the plant for a printed circuit board. And also made a small overclocking of the graphics core, which increased the performance of the video adapter.

Testing and overclocking of the graphic accelerator

The device NVIDIA GeForce 8500 GT has a small heat dissipation package, and therefore provokes many owners to increase the performance of the graphics core by raising the frequency of the processor. As practice shows, budget representatives, in contrast to video game class, have a lot of problems that can hinder overclocking. The installed memory modules have frequency limits, so it's impossible to raise the frequency above 800 MHz at the hardware level.

The graphics core is more responsive to overclocking - 600 MHz for it is quite real frequency, but only electrolytic capacitors in the power system are very hot. Accordingly, you need to think about their cooling. Many enthusiasts who increased the frequency of the graphics processor, recommend to ensure effective heat removal from the system unit, as the efficiency of the video card fan leaves much to be desired.

Feedback from users

The video adapter can be overclocked, and it's worth it. And overclocking in the best case reaches 20% on the graphics core NVIDIA GeForce 8500 GT. The owners' feedback notes only the need to provide decent cooling to all elements of the printed circuit board. On the other hand, any overclocking contributes to a noticeable improvement in the performance of the video adapter, but in this case the result is almost invisible. In the same legendary toy "World of Tanks" the user will see a gain of only two frames per second (from 25 to 27 FPS in the minimum settings of video quality).

If you omit the game features, then the advantages can be seen a little more. Support for libraries DirectX 10 and API allows you to work in a development environment without problems, and hardware acceleration is quite capable of coping with 3D graphics and complex modeling. The lack of requirements for a power supply unit is undoubtedly a plus for any customer who can save on buying a computer, because a powerful PSU is very expensive.

Finally

You can safely conclude that for fans of games (not even resource-intensive) the NVIDIA GeForce 8500 GT video adapter does not fit. Experts recommend paying attention to models of a new generation with the marking GTX. Even with the fact that the video card can work in SLI mode, there are no privileges in the performance of games. After all, an important factor is the support for DirectX libraries.

But as a graphic accelerator for work and creativity, this inexpensive solution will be quite acceptable. Let the choice in the market is not so great, but it is quite possible to find a worthy device.