Sonic isnt any GPU manufacturer. Actually, Sonic,Super and Sonic+ are Palit's models. Super generally includes 512MB and above VRAMs. Sonic and Sonic+ models feature better VRAM modules,cooling units and comparatively higher clocks than other OC'd cards. And thats why, Sonic+ models are quite costly than the regular ones. Though, performance is worth the price.will have to look for palit and sonic cards,and yes i will be using the card for about 1 and half years atleast.
^^ u can compare the core clocks of 2 gpu's based on the same core. . in the comparison u gave , they have different cores.
@quan_chi
also check whether the speed of your two RAM sticks are the same...
and if possible run a memory integrity check.. (using memtest *www.memtest.org/)
EDIT:
bah! sagar beat me to it
and 8500GT is a pretty low powered card and it doesn't heat much like XFX's 8600GTs.. even some cards are passively cooled
_
^^specify the C2D processor model!
Apart from that, rest of the config seems nice!
Btw, u should go for >160GB, 250GB atleast! Games like UT-III and Crysis could easily eat up lots of GBs!
Ofcourse, u'll see a major performance difference! Believe me u are in for a tr8. (GMA ->8800GT! )
yep, uninstall old vga drivers before installing the new card and its drivers.