XFX GeForce 8400GS

==GeForce 8400 GS==

Quick review = A very good performer for its price

===Main Specifications===

This is taken from XFX's website.

Chipset
GeForce™ 8400 GS

Memory Clock
800 MHz

Clock rate
450 MHz

Shader Clock
1200 MHz

Memory
256MB SUPPORTING 512MB

Fill Rate
3.6 billion/sec
.../> Memory Type
DDR2

Memory Bus
64 bit

RAMDACs
400 MHz

Output
VGA, DVI, HDTV

Highlighted Features

Vista , RoHS , HDCP Ready , HDTV ready , Low Profile Compatible [bracket not included]

===Hands On Review===

I owned this card, but not now since i upgraded my PCto sport a GeForce 280. Take me, this card was a very good ... more

GeForce 8400 GS

Quick review = A very good performer for its price

Main Specifications

This is taken from XFX's website.

Chipset
GeForce™ 8400 GS

Memory Clock
800 MHz

Clock rate
450 MHz

Shader Clock
1200 MHz

Memory
256MB SUPPORTING 512MB

Fill Rate
3.6 billion/sec

Memory Bandwidth
6.4 GB/sec

Memory Type
DDR2

Memory Bus
64 bit

RAMDACs
400 MHz

Output
VGA, DVI, HDTV

Highlighted Features

Vista , RoHS , HDCP Ready , HDTV ready , Low Profile Compatible [bracket not included]

Hands On Review

I owned this card, but not now since i upgraded my PCto sport a GeForce 280. Take me, this card was a very good performer for its price. I got it around for 100 USD approx. including tax here in my place. It played almost all new games very well. Its not possible to get a good DirectX 10 card with good overall performance like this one. Its rare to get such types, this was one such type of card to get,

Games played for overall assesement

Assassin's creed

First I played Assasins Creedwith all set to medium level settings and it played just fine. Rarely there were very few glitches and the FPS dropped to 7 rarely when the game was filled with more crowds ony, this happened very rarely and is neglibgle.

The water effects and the pixel rendering along with pixel and vertex shading capabilities offered by the game just made the game took glossy and more legible for gameplay. Though the games was tuned to mid-range settings, it was very good in graphical appearance. I played the game and all the in-game textures were rendered very smoothly and the edges of the buildings and walls were well anti-aliased which was set to 4x.

Call Of Duty IV

Second game i playes with this card was Call Of Duty 4. This game as everyone knew, carries a very good ingame graphics and lighting systems which makes the game a visual treat. The game played just good, though you can experience that the game slows down a bit whenever a heavy gun-firing is encountered or when just more peoples show up on the screen. The game was set to run in medium settingsand the card's performance in overall was reasonable and pretty decent.

Gears Of War

Third game was Gears of War. No intro to this game is needed as everyone knew about this already about the in-game graphics. The game was set to run at medium settings with anti-aliasing set to 8x and the card performed well. No glitches and the FPS was also pretty decently maintained.

All the above games that i played was with Stock Frequencies only and did not overclock it. But i overclocked it and played all the games i listed above and there was roughly a 4-7 FPS inclrease overall. COD4 performed very well and the in-game performance was much improved when overclocked.

All the lighting effects of COD4, the blood and gory of Gears of War and the fast paced action sequences of Assassins creed were very well rendered by this card which in overall was very good.

I wanted to play Crysis in this card but by that time i upgraded my system to a 7950 Geforce, so could not experience how this card performed with Crysis. No matter as one can find videos of Crysis in Youtube/Metacafe or in other video sharing sites.

Performance with Vista/HD Playback

This card is a WDDM card supporting vista. I got a rating of 4.2 for Aero Handling and 3.6 for Gaming graphics. Vista performance was very good, AERO enabled with vista was a visual treat it can handle vista 100% flawless.

Now for HD playback. I played Terminator 3 and Into the blue WMV HD and its quality was really superb. No backlog or any gliches and the playback was superb at full HD, 1920x1080.

This card is a true entertainer and is a powerhouse when it comes to HD playback.

Conclusion

Overall this cards performace is good for its price. This carries a great value for money as it can handle all the new games pretty good at medium settings and when overclocked its performace was better.

So if one wants to opt for a budget card with DirectX 10 support then this one is for you. I recommed this product for those who wants to experience games at mid-range quality but definitely not for Hardcore gamers.

P.S = if you find this review useful please rate it. Your comments are also very helpful for mee too. So please leave your feedback also. Thanks in advance.

Also i give this card a raing "Excellent" with respect to other cards of same class.

Regards

Nishanth Lakshminarayanan 

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