Asus EN8500 GT Graphic Card
With the launch of its entry-level GeForce 8 series graphics cards, Nvidia is now ready with its lineup of DirectX 10-based graphics cards for every need and budget. To show you what lies within the Nvidia GeForce 8500 GT which targets budget consumers, we got our hands on the Asus EN8500GT Top. FEATURES: With 'TOP' (which stands for Top Overclocking Performance) appended to the model number of the card, the EN8500GT TOP belongs to Asus' series of factory-overclocked graphics cards.

The core and memory of regular 8500 GT cards are clocked at 450 MHz and 400 MHz respectively. Asus has gone a long way ahead and pushed the speeds to 600 MHz and 700 MHz respectively with great ease. This surely calls for a good cooling system, and Asus has topped the card with a customized active cooling fan. The heatsink spans 90 mm in diameter and is cooled by a 65 mm fan fitted in the center. The rear panel of the card features D-sub and DVI ports. Component video output is provided via a bundled component output dongle. The card also comes bundled with the full version of WTCC's (World Touring Car Championship) official game, RACE.

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PERFORMANCE: To assess the performance of the EN8500GT TOP, we compared its performance to the non-overclocked Galaxy GeForce 8500 GT to illustrate the effect of overclocking on the stock speeds. The scores clearly show that a speed boost of 33 percent in core speed and 75 percent in memory speed delivers a 40 percent jump in overall performance. This clearly justifies the premium that the card commands over standard GeForce 8500 GT cards that are available for around Rs 6,200.

VERDICT: Even though the EN8500GT TOP offers 40 percent better performance than the regular 8500 GT. the overall performance still remains entry-level. Don't expect this card to belt out playable frame rates at high resolutions with anti-aliasing enabled. If you want something more powerful, the next best option is the GeForce 8600 GT.
FOR: Great performance jump over stock speeds, excellent cooling system.
Specifications
Graphics processor: Nvidia GeForce 8500 GT;
DirectX support: 10;
Interface: PCI Express;
Core speed: 600 MHz;
Memory speed: 700 MHz;
Memory type: DDR3;
Video memory: 256 MB;
Memory bus: 128-bit;
Stream processors: 16;
Video outputs: D-sub, DVI, and component.