ATI 8500: Potential to be as good, or better, than GeForce 4?

[ArvinC]

Hello everybody!

I recently read an article at the Tech Report concerning the future of battles to be waged between ATI and nVidia over 3d-graphic supremacy. (You can find the article here: http://www.tech-report.com/reviews/2002q2/ati-nvidia/index.x?pg=1) Overall, it seems like a really good article, very fair and well written. In the end, the GeForce 3 Ti-500 and the GeForce 4 Ti-series cards were the benchmark and performance leaders, as to be expected.

However, the author did summerize that the ATI Radeon 8500 (with 128 DDR RAM) chip-set could, in someways, be viewed as still more advanced in certain areas than even the GeForce 4 Ti-series chipsets. He went on to say that, as has been proven, the ATI drivers are hampering the 8500's full capabilities.

We all have known that on paper, at least, the 8500 was supposed to be a better chip-set than the GeForce 3. But what is it about this "under-driven" card that could make it more advanced (POTENTIALLY!) than nVidia's latest and greatest? Just interested in some chip/archetecture theory!

ArvinC

 

[Blurry]

I think that author may be mistaken.
First of all, the ATI RADEOn 8500 with 128 megs of ddr ram will never be anywhere better than the Geforce 3 and not to mention the Geforce 4. First of all, it doesn't have enough vertex shaders to handle 128megs of RAM. Even though it has the pretty impressive SMOOTHVISION, the GF3 and the geforce 4 both have much better image quality in 3D (games). And also, I doubt ATI will hamper the Radeon 8500 to its max potential, even if it maybe maxed out already.

 

[Athlon4all]

To be frank, I doubt that the R200 core (Radeon 8500 and up) will ever best the NV25 series (GF4 Ti and up). I dunno if it's drivers, or poor implementations of features or what, but I don't think that R200 has any hope of beating the NV25. Case in point, is that despite here, the R8500 has been out for what 7 months now, and when it debuted, it had 35MHz faster Core Clock, and had nearly 1GB/ps more than nVidia's flagship at the time(GF3 Ti500), and yet, it could not beat the GF3Ti200 which had 2.2GB/ps less memory bandwidth and a 100MHz slower core clock. And even now, the R8500 can't best the GF3 Ti500 in all but UPT2K2. And even if the R8800 features a 300MHz core clock like the GF4 Ti4600, and a 325MHz Memory bus, it will never come close to the Ti4400, and prolly even manage to still lkose to the Ti4200. This is just my opinion, and I don't know weather it's drivers or what, but I really think that ATI will before R300 and NV30, will at best, get betweeen GF3 Ti500 and GF4 Ti4200. We'll see about R300. And really, IMHO, the nV25 core is suprior to the R200 in every single way.

 

[JeremiahTheGreat]

No.. with the new Beta drivers, the Radeon 8500 truely leaves the Geforce 3 Ti200 in the dirt..

In 2D (and hence 3D) the Radeon 8500 is much much better, sharper and more colourful than the Geforce 3.. and just like the people above who posted, I will not offer any evidence to vindicate any of the claims i've made. Just gotta love when people do that..

 

[SSXeon5]

<< I think that author may be mistaken.
First of all, the ATI RADEOn 8500 with 128 megs of ddr ram will never be anywhere better than the Geforce 3 and not to mention the Geforce 4. First of all, it doesn't have enough vertex shaders to handle 128megs of RAM. Even though it has the pretty impressive SMOOTHVISION, the GF3 and the geforce 4 both have much better image quality in 3D (games). And also, I doubt ATI will hamper the Radeon 8500 to its max potential, even if it maybe maxed out already. >>



Hey bud any 8500 64MB/128MB kills a Ti500 ..... And you just said the GF3/4 have better image quality then the 8500 LMFAO .... the GF3/4 have what a 350Mhz Ramdac, wile the radeon 8500 has 400Mhz! And can you get a better buy then a retail radeon 8500 64MB for $155 shipped .... i dont think so!




<< To be frank, I doubt that the R200 core (Radeon 8500 and up) will ever best the NV25 series (GF4 Ti and up). I dunno if it's drivers, or poor implementations of features or what, but I don't think that R200 has any hope of beating the NV25. Case in point, is that despite here, the R8500 has been out for what 7 months now, and when it debuted, it had 35MHz faster Core Clock, and had nearly 1GB/ps more than nVidia's flagship at the time(GF3 Ti500), and yet, it could not beat the GF3Ti200 which had 2.2GB/ps less memory bandwidth and a 100MHz slower core clock. And even now, the R8500 can't best the GF3 Ti500 in all but UPT2K2. And even if the R8800 features a 300MHz core clock like the GF4 Ti4600, and a 325MHz Memory bus, it will never come close to the Ti4400, and prolly even manage to still lkose to the Ti4200. This is just my opinion, and I don't know weather it's drivers or what, but I really think that ATI will before R300 and NV30, will at best, get betweeen GF3 Ti500 and GF4 Ti4200. We'll see about R300. And really, IMHO, the nV25 core is suprior to the R200 in every single way. >>



And the 8500 was ment for killing the gf3 (and it did .... image quality/ features /ect) .... the 10000 is for the NV30 (GF5??) not for the GF4......

R300 AKA Radeon 10000

-Core/Mem 350/800Mhz
-0.13 micron
-128bit 128/256MB DDR-SDRAM
-4 pixels/clock
-2 textures/cycle
-8 textures per pixel
-75 million triangles/sec
-Programmable Vertex Shading
-2x N-patche engines (truform2)
-DirectX 9

Suck on that!

SSXeon

 

[FuManStan]

Hmm... i dont remember a 8500 beating a Ti500. Maybe in a few benchmarks but no way does it kill it. ATI definatly has better 2D, but i think 3D image quality is subjective. I remember reading an article that compared an ATI and Nvidia card (forget which ones, i think the original Radeon and Geforce 3) where they looked at which card rendered images correctly, but not necessarily better, and Nvidia won. I wish i could find it.

 

[Tates]

I recently swapped my GF3, original oc'able to GF3 Ti500 spec, for an ATi Radeon 8500. If you haven't experienced both first hand, you can't brag either way.

The 2D & 3D quality on my 8500 is much better than the GF3, my 8500 scores 1500 points faster in 3dMark2001SE over the GF3, and all my games run smother and better on the 8500.

'Nuf said.....

 

[tsunek]

the new 6042 and higher drivers really give the radeon a huge boost. most reviews haven't used these because they are unoffical betas but they truly improve performance

 

[Rand]

<< I think that author may be mistaken.
First of all, the ATI RADEOn 8500 with 128 megs of ddr ram will never be anywhere better than the Geforce 3 and not to mention the Geforce 4. First of all, it doesn't have enough vertex shaders to handle 128megs of RAM. Even though it has the pretty impressive SMOOTHVISION, the GF3 and the geforce 4 both have much better image quality in 3D (games). And also, I doubt ATI will hamper the Radeon 8500 to its max potential, even if it maybe maxed out already. >>



I disagree, the R200 core has the same number of pixel and vertex shaders as the GF4 core, and we've all seen the theoretical synthetic benchmarks that have shown the R8500 to easily walk away from the GF3 Ti500 in terms of vertex shading an pure T&L performance. As vertex shaders become more heavily utilized it seems strongly likely to me that it will eventually surpass the GF3 core.
I'm not sure how you figure the R8500 doesnt have the vertex shaders to use 128MB of RAM. The number of vertex shaders has nothing to do with the amount of DRAM the card is effectively capable of utilizing.
If the R8500 lacks the vertex shaders to use 128MB of RAM, then I presume you also consider the GF4 as being unable to use it, as both cores have two vertex shaders.

If anything it seems to stands to reason the R8500 would stand to benefit more from extra DRAM then would the GF3/4, it has the same pixel and vertex shader count as the GF4, a signifificantly more memory dependent method of FSAA, and texture compression has been shown to be less efficient in the R200's memory architecture hence it's logical the R8500 would likely stand to see a greater benefit then either the GF3 or GF4 core from going from
64 > 128MB DRAM.

I won't touch the debate of which has superior 3D image quality, everyone seems to have a different opinion on the topic and I don't believe either to be significantly better then the other. Both seem to have slight advantages depending upon the scene being rendered.


As for whether the R8500 has the potential to outperform the GF4.... in a few select scenerios, yes I do believe it does. But in the vast majority of instances the GF4 should always prove to be stronger.
The GF4 Ti4600 has a higher pixel and texel fillrate, and a stronger theoretical pixel/vertex shader, along with a significantly more efficient memory architecture.
Certainly in some ways it's more advanced then the GF4, but in the areas the are most frequently stressed by 3D games the NV25 core is superior technologically, and often more efficient with driver support then is generally better at taking advantage of the cards resources.

Scenes that are heavily dependent on strip meshes, multiple forms of bump mapping applied simultaneously, high levels of multiple lighting sources rendered simultaneously, scenes that utlilize n-patches to a decent degree.... all should consistently favor the R8500 over the GF4, but those are pretty specific areas and for the most part the GF4 should consistentlyoutperform the R8500... now and even more so in the future.

 

[Sunner]

People mention how the R8500 is gonna kill the GF3 once games start using the DX 8.x functions, but I've yet to see any real world benches that verify this.

I think it was Ars that did a benchmark using Comanche 4 which is a DX8 game using pixel and vertex shaders, and the Ti500 beat the R8500 by a fairly significant margin.

Of course this could be due to several factors, maybe the developers optimized the game for nVidia's chips since they own a larger part of the market, or maybe it' a driver thing.

However in the end, it just seems like nVidia has more stable performance while ATI's veries greatly depending on the app used.

Oh and I still think 3DMark is useless.

 

[BFG10K]

The Radeon 8500 has the potential to edge the GF3 Ti500 but not in its' wildest dreams can it ever hope to take on a GF4 Ti4600.

It's impossible, and even without going into any depth at all you can dismiss it purely on the grounds of core clock speed and memory bandwidth.

 

[rogue1979]

The latest drivers and benchmarks put the Radeon 8500 and Geforce 3 Ti 500 very close in performance. While the Radeon 8500 is an excellent buy right now, neither it or the Geforce 3 can keep up with the Geforce 4 Ti 4400 or 4600.

 

[Cocytus]

I have a GPU thats been around 27 years that spanks every card ever released, or ever will be released.

The proto-type has perfect image color, richness, clarity, operates on a driver set that receives updates every second of the day. And FPS? There isn't a benchmark that can count that high. Let's just say it's hyper/photo realistic.

The memory? Perfect. Fastest yet. Also seems to be limitless. The card is part of a larger system that is considered to have incredible independenrt intelligence (triple-I feature for the marketing folks).

But this one goes where your crude ones can't. It also features the quint-x. Thats a feature that allows tactile feedback, sound, taste, graphics, and even smell.

The boys in R&D are working out a few bugs. It seems to need a refresh of about 8 hours out of every 24, and certain chemicals and alcohol impede it's performance. I bet I get 100 years out of it though; durable. I've even seen the thing repair itself after grievous damage.

No video out.....yet.

Visit http://www.MyMind.com for details.

 

[Shudder]

You must work for BitBoys, eh?

 

[tsunek]

from what i understand the commanche 4 benchmark was not detecting the pixel shaders on the 8500 and was doing the effects through multipass rendering. not completely sure abou this one though