Geforce 8500 Gt & 9600 Gt Options

[openxdkman]

New, affordable nv50 graphic cards are out...

Since I don't want you to waste all your money, I will always recommend to not spend more than $100 (or 100 euros) on a graphic card. That's why, in an attempt to reuse all the important progresses made by the "Nouveau" project (open sources nvidia drivers), I recommended GeForce 7300 GT (nv40 category).
For the same reason I suggest you focus on GeForce 8500 GT for now, if you need DirectX10.
A good side effect will also be less noise (since less power).

Bandwidth of 7300 GT is 10.7 Gb/s, to compare with high end ($600) cards that have 86.4 Gb/s.
Bandwidth of 8500 GT is 12.8 Gb/s, for, I guess, the same $100 price.

I will call the 7000 series the nv40 family and the 8000 series the nv50 family to make it short.

Assuming enough time is invested into it, the creation of a nice open source driver for nv40 (and potentially for PS3 RSX that may fall in the same category) is not too much far from our grisp.

For nv50, it's a different story. It will, logically, take more time to appear.

So, if you plan to switch to nv50 card, DO NOT RESELL your nv40 card. It may become useful soon.

Also, never forget that the ad "Only Vista can unleash the power of DirectX10 compatible graphic cards" is a lie. The truth is that non public agreements exist that make Nvidia and ATI publish only optimized drivers for Vista+DirectX10. It's more commercial than technical. Nouveau project will help non Vista user to take advantage of new nv50 architecture (strangely I have the feeling we get closer to the PS2 architecture... -i.e coprocessor(s) able to do almost anything-. But I may be wrong).

This post has been edited by openxdkman: Apr 22 2007, 04:41 PM

[openxdkman]

It seems Gigabyte released, once again, passive coolers models.
So, try looking for "Gigabyte GeForce 8500 GT".
Passive cooler means : zero noise!
(heat goes away through a massive metal part)

This post has been edited by openxdkman: May 19 2007, 03:02 PM

[openxdkman]

I've purchased a 8500 GT (12.8Gb/s) and a 9600 GT (57.6Gb/s), so I can provide support in future versions of minidash for pc0, for each main familly.

This post has been edited by openxdkman: Aug 17 2008, 11:05 AM

[openxdkman]

Pheewww!!!
PhysX add-ons just got announced, and it was a close call. Oldest compatible model seems to be 9600 GT.
So I was close to purchase only non compatible cards. At least I will have one to play with the PhysX toy.

PhysX is refering to coprocessor(s) dedicated to objects motion calculation (according to the laws of physics).
Removes a lots of work from main CPU's/GPU's when it comes to render a collapsing wall or floating cloth.

EDIT:
I probably misread the article. I doubt low price cards will be compatible with it. No PhysX fun for me! (oldest compatible model seems to be 9800, but specs are still a bit vague)

This post has been edited by openxdkman: Aug 17 2008, 11:05 AM

[openxdkman]

It seems that if your nvdia card doesn't support CUDA, you won't be compatible with PhysX add-ons.
I guess you can still have a separate older model of PhysX card inserted into another pci-e slot...
Still a young technology, it seems. For a strong standard to appear we will have to wait. But it can perfectly never appear as a separate standard and become a sub-fonctionnality of GPU's.

This post has been edited by openxdkman: Aug 17 2008, 11:14 AM