EVGA eGeForce 8400GS

[detoam]

Yes it is a budget card. But for the price it is still an awesome card. http://www.nvidia.com/object/geforce_8400.html
First the cons:
Setting up 3D settings through the Nvidia control panel while easy was a mistake. I have set it up to run at almost the best possible settings, leaving almost nothing to run as per application settings. Run into issues immediately. Playing BF2 (with in-game settings at a medium) the game would crash about every hour. Same was for the Chronicles of Riddick game.
The stock cooling is useless. Card very often heats up to 58 degrees.
The multi-display settings in the driver a hard to figure out.
EVGA website does not even display the card anymore and it wasn't very easy to find it there.

The pros:
Very good with video processing. I run Various Adobe graphics and video programs and none of them have any issues.
When I finally adjusted the settings in the control panel to let each program decide the quality for itself the card performed great.

Overall i would have to say that if You (like me) have a low budget, but do want shader 4 and DX10 compatibility this is the card for You.

I have yet to test it on Vista.

 

[captaincranky]

Yes it is a budget card. But for the price it is still an awesome card. http://www.nvidia.com/object/geforce_8400.html
First the cons:
The stock cooling is useless. Card very often heats up to 58 degrees.

58 degrees Centigrade is not very hot for a GPU.

The multi-display settings in the driver a hard to figure out.

Yes, to a degree, but Nvidia has included every setting you might think you need but it does require a bit of digging and patience.

EVGA website does not even display the card anymore and it wasn't very easy to find it there.

Well, true enough, but this is true of most manufacturers sites now. They try lead you right to the 8800GT cards right from the jump. I suppose they figure that's what everybody's looking for at the moment.

Overall i would have to say that if You (like me) have a low budget, but do want shader 4 and DX10 compatibility this is the card for You.

I didn't take the time to check this out, but I believe the GT8400 also is HDCP compatible as well.
If you aren't trying to establish yourself as a legend in gaming circles this could be the graphics card for you, as it adds dual monitor and High def capability to the average computer with onboard graphics.

I would also suggest that people check out this GT8500 from Biostar: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814141065 this card is a steal ($35.00) after MIR. It has 512MB of GDDR2 of it's own (doesn't use any system RAM), and is 128 bit access. I believe the 8400s are 64 bit, but keep in mind I don't know if that is really a downside when you consider the likely uses of either of these cards. They both should do a bang up job of driving your flat screen TV and monitor.