Introduction

At the beginning of July we took a closer look at the low end range from NVIDIA, the 8500 GT to be precise. We compared that card to the older 7300 GT cards, one equipped with DDR2, the other with DDR3. The outcome was a bit divided, the new 8500 GT did pretty good compared to the 7300 GT with DDR2, but the DDR3 model was able to run on par mostly throughout the benchmarks. When Leadtek send us their 8500 GT we weren’t too excited at first, but then our eye saw the little sticker on the board:



The WinFast PX8500 GT TDH Extreme, comes with DDR3 memory onboard, the original 8500 GT unit we tested had DDR2. Can this memory bandwidth boost make a difference large enough worth noticing? We will find out.

WinFast PX8500 GT TDH Extreme

Leadtek deviated from the NVIDIA reference design with this VGA card, which stipulates DDR2 usage for the 8500 GT GPU, and not only did they up the memory bandwidth, they also gave the GPU a boost, default clocks for the GPU 450Mhz, the WinFast runs at 522Mhz, DDR2 memory speed on the reference board is 400Mhz, with the DDR3 this is boosted up to 702Mhz!

Of course with the new 8 series card you are also enjoying DX10 compatibility and full HD feature set to help you build a HTPC. The retail box of the PX8500 GT gives you all the details needed on the front cover:



Inside the box you’ll find the following goodies:

DVI->VGA Converter

HDTV / TV-Out cables

Very detailed installation manuals for both hardware and software config

Drivers CD

Join Task Force (Full Game)!

The Drivers CD includes WinFOX a Windows based overclocking and tweaking utility, the autorun screen is quite fancy :)



Let’s take a closer look at the PX8500 GT ->