Originally posted by Moridin
I doubt the 8500 will offer any advantage over an FX 5600. Ultimately the 5600 may be better off running in DX8.1 mode, but that is the best you can get out of an 8500, and the 5600 will almost certainly end up being faster in that mode.
I did not mean to imply the 8500 was better or faster than a 5200/5600 really, what I meant was people were buying these cards as "upgrades" thinking they will play HL2 well etc. whereas the guy who started this thread hasn't upgraded at all yet. In other words he is better off staying where he is for the moment than buying a poor performing DX9 card. The lower end GFFX's may have DX9 support but lack the horsepower to run in DX9 mode.