View Full Version : HARDOCP Review of 8500......
Violator
10-19-01, 08:16 AM
http://www.hardocp.com/reviews/vidcards/ati/8500/
Speaks for itself really......
Yeah, it speaks for itself- and it's saying, "Buy a Geforce Ti!!"
Violator
10-19-01, 12:42 PM
Originally posted by Monster of Rock
Yeah, it speaks for itself- and it's saying, "Buy a Geforce Ti!!"
That's what I'm hearing :D
LOL
I'm pretty disappointed in the new 8500- hopefully new drivers will fix it, but it seems ATI is trying to follow in 3DFX's footsteps. The ATI 8500 looks an awful lot like the Voodoo 5500 in terms of lateness to market, high cost, and second best performance.
C'mon ATI, don't let us down!! Any more!:D
Microsoft
10-19-01, 02:36 PM
well the [L]imp maser has his followings
yup it is basically saying, *must buy geforce 3 ti500*, and it really is all ati's fault on account of their crappy drivers.., i just hope they fix them up because i was really looking forward to this card. :(
Default
10-20-01, 12:27 AM
irony is that if you ran the same benchmarks under win98se the radeon would win all but max payne. and even in windows 2000 i'm sure the human eye could not tell the difference between the frame rates that it shows. I would much rather have the visiual enhancments thank you.
Cisco Kid
10-20-01, 01:07 AM
Guys , I would not jump on the wagon so quick to start slamming the Radeon 8500. I think many will be surprised by the performance of this card with the next driver release.
Actually ATI just released a driver on the 15th, in any of the reviews I do not believe they mention if this new driver is being used. None the less I think you will find out that for price /performance the radeon 8500 will be the better choice , and you can bet the driver issue will be sorted out very shortly.
Cisco Kid;)
Violator
10-20-01, 04:48 AM
Originally posted by Cisco Kid
Guys , I would not jump on the wagon so quick to start slamming the Radeon 8500. I think many will be surprised by the performance of this card with the next driver release.
Actually ATI just released a driver on the 15th, in any of the reviews I do not believe they mention if this new driver is being used. None the less I think you will find out that for price /performance the radeon 8500 will be the better choice , and you can bet the driver issue will be sorted out very shortly.
Cisco Kid;)
I think you'll find that Anand and HardOCP were using the shipping drivers, and in the case of Anand a 'performance version' which I believe has now been leaked (7199s on 98, 3281s on 2000). Anand stated there was very little difference except on 3dMark and VillageMark (optimisations for benchmarks perhaps?), no real game improvements. Having tested the 3281s for myself (and no I don't have an 8500, but these are unified drivers remember) I get a 160 point drop in 3dmark and the IQ just sucks. Stuttery as hell too. And still no 'Smoothvision' only FSAA.
I'd love to know the basis of your statement 'you can bet the driver issue will be sorted out shortly'. Are you sponsored by ATi or something? Have you any idea of ATi's history when it comes to drivers?.
In any case, people want a card that functions NOW, not maybe 3-4 months down the road. Think about that.
Nagorak
10-20-01, 05:51 AM
Originally posted by touser
yup it is basically saying, *must buy geforce 3 ti500*, and it really is all ati's fault on account of their crappy drivers.., i just hope they fix them up because i was really looking forward to this card. :(
Which is honestly funny since the Ti500 costs over $300 and the Radeon 8500 costs only a little over $200.
The truth is several reviews have cast the Radeon 8500 in bad light, but when it came down to searching Pricewatch for a card my wallet had the final say. Funny how that happens, eh? :rolleyes:
These reviews are nonsense. From a price/performance standpoint there's no competition, it's Radeon 8500 all the way. Even assuming performance is inferior to the Ti500, it costs in some cases half as much.
Anyway, maybe the reviews speak for themselves to you, that's your decision to make. You guys may have money to burn, but I certainly do not.
Cisco Kid
10-20-01, 12:20 PM
Originally posted by Violator
I think you'll find that Anand and HardOCP were using the shipping drivers, and in the case of Anand a 'performance version' which I believe has now been leaked (7199s on 98, 3281s on 2000). Anand stated there was very little difference except on 3dMark and VillageMark (optimisations for benchmarks perhaps?), no real game improvements. Having tested the 3281s for myself (and no I don't have an 8500, but these are unified drivers remember) I get a 160 point drop in 3dmark and the IQ just sucks. Stuttery as hell too. And still no 'Smoothvision' only FSAA.
I'd love to know the basis of your statement 'you can bet the driver issue will be sorted out shortly'. Are you sponsored by ATi or something? Have you any idea of ATi's history when it comes to drivers?.
In any case, people want a card that functions NOW, not maybe 3-4 months down the road. Think about that.
I am very aware of ATI history of drivers, however there has been no real driver issues of late except this card being released possibly or obviously a little early. I use a radeon viv 64 ddr card and have not suffered any performance loss of great significance from ATI released drivers to the beta 's I am using with XP.
Whether I am sponsored by ATI you be the judge, bottom line is the Radeon is a better value based on performance and price. You know the driver issues will be corrected. Tell me why nvidia releases numerous drivers to continually improve card performance ??
Cisco Kid;)
Cisco Kid
10-20-01, 12:25 PM
The basis of my statement regarding driver issue to be cleared up shortly means
" do you not think ATI is aware of this issue?? " "I am sure it has been brought to their attention that their is a problem with the drivers released, leading to not stellar performance based on the power of the card!! Yep some of the best features are not working but it is not going to be some long drawn out problem imho....
Take it for what it is.
Cisco Kid:)
Why is there even any argument here? The Radeon lost the benchmark test, pure and simple. Given ATI's past track record of driver updates, I don't expect any miracle to be worked on the 8500. The damn thing was in development practically forever, and it shows in these benchmarks. They seem to have developed the 8500 to compete with Geforce2-era cards, not GF3 and certainly not GF3 Ti cards. nVidia's notoriously speedy dev team strikes again! Seriously, for a while there we heard about new features being added to the 8500 weekly- like they were realizing how tough the battle was actually going to be.
As for price- $300 for a Ti 500 vs $200 for an 8500? Eff that, that's why they make lower model Ti 200 for half the price- that overclocks to a higher rate than the 500. This is OC.com, after all!;) Gotta keep that in mind.
ATI has a good product, but it seems rushed to market- re the difficulties experienced at HardOCP relating to Palominos and their chipsets, and the 1 zillion new feature they added to it at the last minute to keep it competitive. Add to that ATI's shady practice of manipulating clock speeds without teling anybody, and the fact that the 8500 doesn't win any speed contests. I'm positive new drivers will speed up the 8500, but not by enough where I would risk an ATI product in my system again.
Good product, but not great. "Great" is the Ti200, especially once you overclock it. It really looks like 3dfx syndrome to me- ATI got too comfortable with the success of the previous product line, and wasted too much new-product dev time coming up with 17 different versions of the Radeon instead of designing the next greatest thing. Now they're back to playing catch-up against nVidia.
Personally, I hope ATI pulls through to kick nVidia the hell out of the #1 spot- they've had it far too long. But according to the numbers, that hasn't happened yet.
Violator
10-20-01, 01:38 PM
Originally posted by Cisco Kid
I am very aware of ATI history of drivers, however there has been no real driver issues of late except this card being released possibly or obviously a little early.Cisco Kid;)
Oh right, so explain to me then the *****-poor performance under Windows 2000/XP (don't give the excuse that they are not gaming platforms remember the 8500 is 'optimised for XP'). Explain why Smoothvision is not working. Going back to the original Radeon for a moment, Vsync still doesn't work, fog still doesn't work. TV-out is shaky for many at best, and this card has been out for a year.
I'd really think about this before you post so much faith in these jokers.
funnyperson1
10-20-01, 01:58 PM
Ati will fix their drivers...they have to, dont you think they realize that they have a problem, that they wont make money unless they update these drivers.... while everybody is complaining about how bad the ATI drivers are and how good the Nvidia drivers are the only fair comparisonwould be testing a Geforce3 with Det3s and then comparing the two.....the truth is ATI is playing Nvidia's game , dont you think they knew how to optimize performance on the Geforce3s when they put it out.... they didnt want to wait to release the Geforce3s and 2-3months later you got the det xps which "increased performance as much as 20-50%"....they let out a product that was half-working......The product release was rushed and hopefully ATI gets their drivers together....
Zuck Gou :)
10-20-01, 03:28 PM
I've never owned a Geforce 3, or an 8500, but if they are anything like these companies previous products then there a few points in why I would choose the Radeon.
1. The colors in a Radeon are brilliant compared to a Geforce2. So brilliant I don't think I could ever go back to a Geforce. Now I've never owned a G3, so I don't know how the colors are with it.
2. The price- A Radeon 8500 is slower than a Geforce 3 in most cases, but the differences are negligible. Now the Geforce 3 has been out close to a year (i think), and it STILL costs more than the Radeon 8500 which was just released.
I don't see the point in playing favourites. As of now, I'm obviously a Radeon man, but if a future Geforce line(like the ti200) has better color quality, I'd definately think about it keeping in mind pricevsperformancevsquality.
Originally posted by Default
irony is that if you ran the same benchmarks under win98se the radeon would win all but max payne. and even in windows 2000 i'm sure the human eye could not tell the difference between the frame rates that it shows. I would much rather have the visiual enhancments thank you.
That is true but see more and more peopel are swithing over to Win2k/XP and not to far down the road win98 will be like win 95, not really used anymore... Also the Radeon is supposed to be optimized for win2k/XP..
]-[itman
10-20-01, 07:07 PM
I for one hope that ATI get's their drivers together. I would like to see them do better and at least keep nVidia on their toes if not knock them off their platform. Competition is what brings out the best products ;) I do agree with Monster, nVidia's been there too long. As far as performance though you have to admit that the new geforce3 TI500 wins. But if you're looking for price for performance the Radeon 8500 wins. As far as image quality I think Hardocp was impressed with both cards. I for one am going to wait and see what ATI does considering their record. If I were to choose a card right now I'd get a GeForce 3 Ti200 or, if i had the money, a Ti500. Just my $.02
Kingslayer
10-20-01, 07:43 PM
ATI will get it together. They have done what no one else has been able to do for the past two years....grab nVidia by the short and curlies.
Even with shoddy drivers it has outperformed the Gforce in 3DMark2001. A program written around the Gforce3.
ATI has an opportunity to grab the video card market and run with it, or at least share in the profit that nVidia once reaped on it's own. They would be stupid not to. I'm sure ATI is quite aware, that this is probably their last chance. They have sunk so much money into the 8500 that it will probably destroy them as a company if they don't make it work.
Default
10-20-01, 08:32 PM
i think it's fair for me just to point out that ATi made the drivers with benchmarks in mind and made many optimizations for 3dmark. or so i've heard
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