Leadtek WinFast PX8500 GT THD Extreme Review

Videocards/VGA Reviews by jmke @ 2007-08-30

A Geforce 8500 GT equipped with 256Mb DDR3 memory chips, a copper heatsink with heat pipe and factory overclocked, can this Leadtek differentiate itself from the reference 8500 GT design? Let´s find out.

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BioShock

BioShock

This latest game based on the Unreal 3 engine has been getting rave reviews for delivering an immersive first person shooter experience. We only played the demo so far, you crash land with your plane near and underwater city and explore the depths of it for coming 20 or so gameplay hours. The art style and details really make this “shooter” stand out from the rest, and with a gripping story will have you playing it for hours on end.

Madshrimps (c)


Due to time constraints we only got a chance to test Leadtek 8500 GT DDR3 with this game, but seeing as overall this card is 40% faster in all benchmarks done so far, we don’t expect much difference here. What we will focus on is at what detail you can play BioShock with this low end sub €100 video card.

Our resolution of choice was 1024x768, anything lower it becomes too blurry, higher resulted in a slide show experience. The in-game details were set to Low/Medium/High for the tests:

Madshrimps (c)

Madshrimps (c)

Madshrimps (c)


The High setting is most taxing as it enables real time reflection for water and high detail shaders, both these settings cause quite a difference in image quality, but not as big as going from medium to low, which we though was really “too blank” looking to be really enjoyable. Here are few comparison screenshots, showing high/med/low setting top to bottom:

Madshrimps (c)Madshrimps (c)Madshrimps (c)Madshrimps (c)


We used FRAPS to log minimum and average frame rates, the benchmark was started at the beginning of the game when you drop in the water, until your capsule enters the city right before the loading screen. These are the results:

Madshrimps (c)


At low quality setting the results are encouraging, 40FPS average with dips to 20fps. Medium Quality setting takes a large toll, a 46% drop in performance; ouch! High quality is completely unplayable. Luckily when you overclock the FPS rise enough at Medium Quality to strike a nice balance between visual quality and smooth gameplay. All in all, for a low end VGA card, the results are far from bad.

Onto power consumption, noise and temperatures ->
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Comment from Sidney @ 2007/11/11
Picked up an 8500GT BFG for $30 at BestBuy close-out sale.
Comment from Sidney @ 2007/11/11
DDR2
Rivatuner max'd out 690 only? 690/510 is what I could get out of it.
Comment from jmke @ 2007/11/11
not too bad, DDR2 8500 GT sample I tested got to 702/410
Comment from Sidney @ 2007/11/11
Rivatuner 2.05 setting allows up to 690, the card may go further. What did you use on the review for ocing?

Comment from jmke @ 2007/11/11
Rivatuner you can set higher limits in the "power user" section
Comment from Sidney @ 2007/11/11
Max Clock Limit? Tried that doesn not work.

Got it. slow me.
Comment from Sidney @ 2007/11/11


Good enough!
Comment from Sidney @ 2007/11/13
3D01 26750
3D03 11496
3D05 6736
3D06 3304

Not bad at all; the fan has less noise than 7600GT. With HDTV @1080i, this is good enough for my HTPC setup & Vista when/if it gets better.

 

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