ATI's Radeon 8500: She's got potential

Final Words

We would be lying if we didn't mention that the Radeon 8500's "final" performance was a bit disappointing; we weren't expecting parity with the $199 GeForce3 Ti 200, we were expecting a GeForce3 Ti 500 killer. All of the specs pointed at a higher performing product, but in the end we are limited by what has been ATI's Achilles' heel: drivers. Luckily the majority of these driver issues are performance related and not compatibility/quality related, but it still means that if you purchase a Radeon 8500 today you won't be getting all that you're paying for; untapped potential is great if it is eventually going to be exposed.

This brings us to the question of exactly how "final" the Radeon 8500's drivers are. ATI has already stated on numerous occasions that they will continue to improve the Radeon 8500's drivers and with each step they will get closer to their goal of extracting every ounce of performance out of the R200 chip. But how long will it take? It won't be a week, not a month, and maybe not even a full quarter before we see the Radeon 8500 running at its full potential. And when the day comes that it is running as fast as it can without any drivers holding it back, what will NVIDIA be doing? You better believe that NVIDIA isn't sitting around idle while the Radeon 8500 begins to encroach on their territory. A company that is used to dominating the market now has a brand new part that is able to come within a few percent and even outperform two of their fastest GPUs. The Radeon 8500 isn't a performance leader part yet, but it very well could become one.

So for those buying today, is the Radeon 8500 a waste of money? Because of its aggressive pricing, you can find Radeon 8500 cards well below the MSRP of $299. Assuming a street price of $250, the Radeon 8500 can give you performance approximately equal to that of a $199 GeForce3 Ti 200 (street price of $179). The potential and additional features of the Radeon 8500 could justify the increase in cost but at this point, we'd recommend more of a wait and see strategy. If you need solid performance today at the best overall price, the GeForce3 Ti 200 is perfect for you. That may change as the Radeon 8500's drivers improve but for now it's just not worth it.

ATI has a short window of opportunity to make the 8500 a success; if they don't accomplish that, NVIDIA will definitely make sure that there is never this close of a call as long as they can help it.