Radeon 8500 is it worth the money? Please Vote

TuffGI · Post by **TuffGI** » Sun Dec 23, 2001 9:56 pm

Howdy everyone:

If you have a Radeon 8500 Video card, please tell give your input on it's performance. I'm currently hanging onto a Voodoo3 3000 and I'm looking to up grade.

TuffGI

MikeyMan · Post by **MikeyMan** » Mon Dec 24, 2001 5:18 pm

The only problem with the 8500, besides the $400 price tag are the malformed drivers that come with it. With decent drivers, the 8500 could smoke the hell out of anything for breakfast in Denmark.

ATi needs to hire a decent software development team and replace the fools they have in there now.

I'd go for the GeForce 3 Ti 500 with low response time memory (3.8ns or below) and a decent heatsink on it then overclock with like NvMax.

the_mp3_refuge · Post by **the_mp3_refuge** » Mon Dec 24, 2001 7:41 pm

Yes, Yes, and did I say YES! The Radeon 8500 IMO is the best video card out right now. Everyone with a GF3 has a great card also but the Radeon 8500 has the ability to become truely amazing with beter drivers down along the line. TuffGI you'll notice improvement right out of the box. ATi is second to Matrox when it comes to 2D quality so things can look criper and cleaner right out of the box. The Radeon 8500 has almost Identical speed to any Ti500 but about 100USD less. It also has new techs like TrueForm and SmoothVision which are sure to revolutionize(sp*) gaming once they get fully adapted. Since you have a V3 3000 upgrading to a Radeon 8500 would be a very good upgrade. Hope that helps

Bob

MAmuT · Post by **MAmuT** » Thu Dec 27, 2001 1:22 am

The Radeon 8500 IMO is the best video card out right now

hey stop smoking that Sh*T it makes you tell ^#$&#

it depends on what you want .

Because i have seen reviews on links posted here that radeon is very good in the smooth part but kind of slow if you compare it with a Gf3 Ti 500

if you want a card fast with greats graphics get GF3 Ti 500.

if you want a card WHICH IS NOT SLOW BUT NOT AS FAST AS A GF3 Ti 500 and withc exelents graphics get radeon 8500 dv

or do what i did get both

Maliy · Post by **Maliy** » Thu Dec 27, 2001 11:28 am

Da best card, get it, you would see a huge performance increase from voodoo3 to Radeon 8500. Geforce 3 might be slightly faster although Radeon8500 still beats it in most benchmarks. Radeon8500 also beats Geforce 3 in price by a lot!!! cost only $245 retail compared to Geforce 3 which is $100 more.

the_mp3_refuge · Post by **the_mp3_refuge** » Thu Dec 27, 2001 4:38 pm

Don't forget there's that trick that turns almost any OEM Radeon 8500 to a retail one... Being your card passes 2 tests

Bob

Joe · Post by **Joe** » Thu Dec 27, 2001 6:06 pm

IMHO at the current moment (NO)

It costs nearly 100$ more than GF3 Ti200 wich can easily be clocked to compete if not beat the Radeon 8500...

It will almost definetally drop drastiocaly in price in the next month with news or releases of new cards from nvidia.

If you are looking to upgrade to a blazing fast card that wont hit you in the wallet either get a Ti200 or simply wait a month or more for the 8500 price to drop (and it will.. no doubt there) and the drivers to get even better making even faster.

Also I think the 8500 is an awesome card but at the current moment it just isnt worth the money on the $ / performance scale.

Joe

d0tn · Post by **d0tn** » Sun Dec 30, 2001 3:00 am

I got my ATI Radeon 8500 for $187. It is great. Check out http://www.pricewatch.com

IRS · Post by **IRS** » Sun Dec 30, 2001 12:01 pm

I like mine, works great.

monty · Post by **monty** » Sun Dec 30, 2001 1:12 pm

Before I bought my new video card, I compared a Radeon 8500 to a GeForce 3. I did not choose based upon a difference of a few frames per second; I chose the Radeon 8500 because it looked better. Of course, the $100 price difference didn't hurt, either.

Now I'm really started to see my money well-spent: I got a digital camera for Christmas (nice in-laws

) and got Adobe Photoshop Elements to use with it. Since the Radeon has two monitor outputs, I connected my 19" to one and my 17" to the other. I have my Photoshop toolbars on the 17" and the images themselves on the 19". Try that with a GeForce 3 (without adding a second video card).

Cheaper, better looking (Return to Castle Wolfenstein includes TruForm support), dual monitor outputs...maybe those will influence your decision. By no means am I bashing Nvidia; my GeForce DDR card sits happily in my server/extra gaming rig.

Maliy · Post by **Maliy** » Mon Dec 31, 2001 12:39 pm

Originally posted by monty
Before I bought my new video card, I compared a Radeon 8500 to a GeForce 3. I did not choose based upon a difference of a few frames per second; I chose the Radeon 8500 because it looked better. Of course, the $100 price difference didn't hurt, either.

Now I'm really started to see my money well-spent: I got a digital camera for Christmas (nice in-laws ) and got Adobe Photoshop Elements to use with it. Since the Radeon has two monitor outputs, I connected my 19" to one and my 17" to the other. I have my Photoshop toolbars on the 17" and the images themselves on the 19". Try that with a GeForce 3 (without adding a second video card).

Cheaper, better looking (Return to Castle Wolfenstein includes TruForm support), dual monitor outputs...maybe those will influence your decision. By no means am I bashing Nvidia; my GeForce DDR card sits happily in my server/extra gaming rig.

100% agree!!!!