ATI's Radeon 8500: She's got potential

2D Performance & Image Quality

We first introduced comprehensive 2D image quality tests in our GeForce3 Roundup where we actually subjectively compared the analog 2D output of GeForce3 cards at high resolutions. We concluded that most cards were similar at 1600 x 1200 while very few were clear at any higher resolutions. We repeated that comparison here for this Radeon 8500 review and decided to compare the 8500 directly to the VisionTek Xtasy GeForce3 Ti 500 card. At 1600 x 1200 @ 85Hz on a 21" Sony Trinitron FD the VisionTek and Radeon 8500 cards were very difficult to tell apart; the 8500 was arguably slightly better but it was very difficult to tell. At 1900 x 1440 @ 75Hz the two were again, very close in image quality but this time the Radeon 8500 was a bit clearer and it was definitely noticeable. At all lower resolutions the two were identical in 2D image quality.

With the release of the Detonator XP drivers NVIDIA has been claiming superior 2D performance under Windows XP, citing the use of an XP effects benchmark to illustrate superior performance when using Windows XP. In order to see how much slow down you'd truly incur when using one video card vs. another under Windows XP we went to a more real world test, Content Creation Winstone 2001. The only variable that was changed was the video card; again we had the VisionTek Xtasy GeForce3 Ti 500 vs. the ATI Radeon 8500. On our test bed the Radeon scored a 68.3 while the GeForce3 Ti 500 scored a 68.4; that's less than a 1% difference and definitely not worth making a big deal out of.

Compatibility

Obviously a big issue for ATI has been compatibility, as their drivers have not always been known for universal compatibility. Luckily times change and things are much different now, but we did run into a few compatibility issues and are able to put others to rest.

The first compatibility issue was the Black & White issue at 1600 x 1200 x 32, however the game worked fine at all other resolutions. Secondly, Madden 2002 would not run at all on the Radeon 8500. ATI is aware of this issue and is promising a fix in the next version of their drivers which is due out later this month.

While we tested all of the games on a Pentium 4 2.0GHz platform under Windows 2000, we verified compatibility with Athlon platforms and the Windows XP OS. The card ran fine on an EPoX KT266A motherboard with an AMD Athlon XP 1800+ and it also ran fine with the supplied drivers under Windows XP. We have not completed extensive compatibility or stability testing under either of those situations but it was important to let you all know that in our limited experience, everything has been working fine. The card and drivers we tested showed worlds of improvement over the original Radeon 8500 silicon and drivers we previewed just two months ago; there were no more random crashes or issues with games.

FSAA: A no-show

Unfortunately one of the most interesting features of the Radeon 8500 that we could take advantage of in current games, ATI's SMOOTHVISION AA, is disabled in the current Radeon 8500 drivers. In spite of the fact that there is a SMOOTHVISION AA panel under Direct3D, the only AA modes supported are the older and inefficient supersampling methods. ATI is promising SMOOTHVISION support in a newer driver revision due out later this month.