When I decided to upgrade my computer I wanted to find a decent but
inexpensive video card that would play the latest and greatest computer games
.
One of my specifications is that the card should have enough memory built into
the card that it would not pull any shared memory from the system. Another
feature I am looking for is the processor that will handle the higher graphics
that the newer computer games are utilizing with the NVidia specification.
I found three such video cards, one from ATI, X1650XT,
one from Visiontek, Radeon X1550, and this one from PNY
Verto 8500GT.
The last video card I bought five years ago had 128 meg of ram, support for
NVidia, it lasted a long time but with as time goes so does the driver support,
the last update for the card was two years ago, not bad for a $100 card.
All three of these cards are very good video cards, how ever the Radeon chip
set has problems with some resolutions where as the NVidia does not. Also both of
the Radeon cards only have 256 meg of ram. So I chose the PNY card. If you were
looking for a card that would display Multimedia then the Radeon would be a
better choice, but for gaming and most Multimedia the PNY Verto 8500GT NVidia card has the upper
hand.
Specifications:
PCI Express x16
RAMDAC Dual 400MHz
Fill Rate 3.6 Billion Pixels/s
Graphics Resolution 2048 x 1536 @ 85Hz Maximum
Signaling Type Digital
API Support OpenGL 2.0
Video Features 16x full-screen anti-aliasing True 128-bit floating point high
dynamic-range (HDR) lighting NVIDIA PureVideo HD technology HDCP Capable
NVIDIA Lumenex Engine NVIDIA nView Multi-Display Technology
Platform Support PC
Miscellaneous:
Additional Information:
Stream Processors: 32 NVIDIA unified architecture with
GigaThread technology
Integrated SD and HD TV Output: Provides world-class TV-out functionality via
Composite, S-Video, Component or DVI connections.
The Review:
I am giving the company 8 out of 10. This card failed one month out of warranty
but the company would have done a RMA on the product if I had chosen to do so.
This is a very good card for the price. The reason for the lower review is the
quality of work done on the card and the failure of the company to follow up
with customers who purchased the card. A lot of good PR was lost by not offering
a recall and fix on the card before failure.
Note:
When this article was written in October of 2008 the card was installed in my
computer for a month. In September of 2009 it died. From the research I have
done about this card there is a batch of them that the quality control of the
manufacturing process failed. There are a lot of cold solder points on the card.
If you have one and it is still under manufacture's warranty you should return
it either for a full refund or a replacement card.
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