Actually, from what I read, the Radeon 8500 is slighty faster in 3DMark2001 over the Ti500, but slightly behind it in *most* but not all games. In higher resolutions, the 8500 is a fair bit better then the Ti500, though neither is signifigantly better then the other. I must admit, I am a ATI fan, but if you want a garunteed preformer with garunteed drivers, then go with nVidia. If you want a 98% chance at getting a good card and decent drivers for cheaper, then go for the 8500. Neither preforms better then the other in any noticable way (outside of benchmarks and exact fps measurements) and both are good cards overall. I chose the 8500 due to money issue ($185) and the fact that I used an ATI product before and loved it. It is really a personal choice, though if you are a smart consumer you might consider the Radeon 7500/GeForce3 Ti200 cards. They prefrom wonderfully and are WAY cheaper then the "top-of-the-line" models. just my $.02