GeForce 8500 and 8600 Series

On April 17, 2007, NVIDIA released the GeForce 8500 GT, 8600 GT, and 8600 GTS for the mainstream market.

The GeForce 8500 GT isn't considered to be a high-end GPU, and has similar specifications to a GeForce 6600 GT.^[9] The 8500 GT is roughly half as fast as the GeForce 8600 GT, which has been considered disappointing and underpowered by many.^{[citation needed]} The main criticism is that the card does not outperform the higher-end cards from the previous GeForce series as well as other mid-ranges cards have in the past. For example, the 8600 GT only averages of approximately twenty percent improvement in framerates of most games over its predecessor, the GeForce 7600 GT. In some games, it can also be slightly slower or on par with the 7600 GT.^[10]. It's generally about as fast as a 7800 GT, which in turn doesn't make it faster than a GeForce 7600 GT (or any card of equal range, e.g. the GeForce 6800 Ultra, Radeon X1800 GTO, Radeon X850 XT, Radeon X800 XT, and Radeon X1650 XT).^{[citation needed]} However, because of the 8600 GT's higher number of stream processors and higher shader clocks, it generally performs better than its GeForce 7 predecessors in games that enhance the shaders. ^[11]

A 8600 GTS is about 15%-40% faster,^{[clarification needed]} and while overall, it's generally on pretty equal grounds with a GeForce 7900 GS (or anything of equal range, e.g. the 256MB GeForce 7800 GTX, a 256MB GeForce 7900 GT, a 256MB Radeon X1800 XT, etc) but, like the 8600 GT, it has an advantage in shader-heavy games for the same reasons, and outguns the 7900 GS in modern games by quite an amount.^{[clarification needed]}

The GeForce 8600 series in particular is hampered by its lack of potential processing power, having only 25% of the full G80 core's stream processors. The series also has a comparatively narrow 128-bit memory bus. Older video cards in the same price range, such as the GeForce 7900 series, featured a 256-bit memory bus.^[12] However, the series' lower power requirements of only a 350-watt power supply make it a possible choice for upgrading computers with weaker power supplies. In comparison, the 8800 GT requires a 400-watt power supply. ^[13]

Also compared with the high end 8800, the midrange 8600 and 8500 are extremely outperformed. However, some GPU mod enthusiasts have been able to push the cards to much higher speeds, in some cases almost double, by modifying the voltage.^{[citation needed]}

NVIDIA introduced one notable feature with the 8500/8600 series: 2nd-generation PureVideo. The first major update to PureVideo since the GeForce 6's launch, 2nd-gen PureVideo offered much improved hardware-decoding for VC-1 and H264 video.