LOSTCIRCUITS |
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FIC RADEON 8500
The Little Card that Could |
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(Review by MS, January 4, 2002)
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Conclusion
Having read the original reviews of the ATI Radeon 8500 I did not expect too much when the, furthermore crippled by lower frequencies, FIC version of the Radeon 8500 arrived on my doorsteps. Originally, running games at low resolution without overclocking the graphics adapter, the FIC Radeon appeared to fit exactly into the mindframe set by expectations. But Halt…. Wasn't there something we forgot?
Sure, and it isn't just something, it is actually more. here is my own very personal rundown of the ATI Radeon8500, retail or OEM (who really cares).
- The Radeon8500 does deliver the best image quality I have ever seen, at least in 2D applications which is still an important aspect of any graphics card since 2D applications still make up the majority of all applications.
- SMOOTHVISION is probably the most ingenious form of antialiasing with the best compromise between smooth edges and preservation of textures.
- At low resolutions, the Radeon 8500 has no chance against the nVidia competition but then, what is the difference between 420 and 460 fps in terms of playability?
- At high resolution, the Radeon8500, even in the slow OEM version delivers equal or possibly better performance than the Ti500, at least in the limited applications we tested here.
- The Radeon8500 is not suited for some advanced Open GL applications like Caligari TrueSpace 4.2 OpenGL benchmark (most likely because of driver issues)
- Despite the fact that the drivers are working, there are still many inconsistencies in terms of performance which suggests that some polishing of the drivers including better use of the AGP interface and write combining could result in a very healthy performance boost.
- The OEM versions of the RADEON 8500 are avialable for as low as $180 (or even less) and for that price, it can hardly be beaten.
- With a $6.50 investment and about ˝ hour of work we managed to get the FIC RADEON 8500 placed in the top20 of all high end systems in the MadOnion Hall of Fame. Pushing things further would defy the purpose of a cheap mod ....
- As soon as nVidia releases their new GeForce4, ATI will be again in the position of trying to catch up.
- Nonetheless, for the price of an OEM version of the ATI Radeon8500, at the very moment, there is no question which is the card of choice.
p.s. while working on this review, the first rumors about the new nVidia NV25 a.k.a. GeForce 4 leaked out. We do have access to some technical specs and furthermore some benchmarks that are under NDA and, therefore won't be disclosed. However, there appears to be some serious competition on the horizon. The GF4 is working, it is not just vaporware, though the question is how good the yields will be and what will be the price point. I guess we'll find out a few weeks/months from now.
Stay tuned for the instructions for making the heat sinks......
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