This one is the younger brother of GeForce 8500 GT (reviewed June07). One major difference is lower memory system bus: 64 bit vs 128-bit, which ultimately results in a lower perfor-mance. It has a 450 MHz core clock speed and 400 MHz memory clock speed with 256 of memory. It boasts of the HD DVD/Blu-ray support for enhanced movie experience along with the traditional support for HDTV and SLI.

In terms of performance, its scores were better at lower resolution and medium settings. Like in 3D Mark06, it scored 1621 (at 1280x 1024 resolution), but if you compromise in terms of resolution you get better performance. Same was the case with FEAR; at max setting (of 1280 x 1024 resolution), it gave 17 fps. But at medium setting (of 800 x 600) you get 116 fps, which is good. Even in games like Pray, Half Life 2 Episode 1, its performance was good. Only in Doom 3, it showed a concern with a mere 4.3 fps. This card is mainly for occasional gamers whose prime requirement is to harness the full potential of DirectX 10 in Windows Vista.