HardwareBanter - View Single Post - MSI 8500GT ($99.99) and 8600GTS ($189.99) are up on ZipzoomFly @ 10PM Pacific Time 16 April.

**noman**

On Thu, 19 Apr 2007 06:45:53 GMT, (John Lewis)
wrote:

On Wed, 18 Apr 2007 14:07:15 -0700, noman
wrote:

These are the weakest mid-range nVidia release in years. 6600GT was an
incredibly successful card and 7600GT was not bad either.

8600GT is slower in most games when compared to similarly priced
X1950Pro (and also X1900XT and 7900GT on bargain), especially when
going above 1280x1024.

8800GTS 320meg is a much better card. Buy.com is selling it for
$220-230 after rebate.

AMD now has the opportunity to hit back in the mid-range market with
their RV630 and RV610 based cards. The next month will be interesting.

Ah, you missed something. One of the major target market for these
graphics cards is the rapidly-expanding HTPC market. Both the G84 and
G86 have the most comprehensive video decoding hardware of any GPU
silicon to date

In that regards, the new HD 2000 series from AMD has even more
features. Besides the H.264 decoding (and dual video streams at the
same time) it'd handle audio (5.1 surround) through HDMI, as well.

If someone is especially interested in looking at HTPC features, then
it makes even more sense to wait till the RV610/RV630 arrive.

BTW, the 8600GTS is no slouch. Roughly equivalent in performance to
my trusty 7800GTX/256meg which is still giving me great service.

That's great. But like I said, for the same price you can buy graphic
cards which perform better in most games. And for $30-40 more, you can
buy top of the line 8800GTS 320meg which'd make a world of difference
in games, while having the same HTPC capabilities.

There's absolutely no reason to buy 8500/8600 cards right now. Pretty
much all the online reviews have said the same thing, as well.
--
Noman