Tom's 8500 Review!

[KrispyKremer]

Do the benchmark results of the ti 500 coming out ahead of the 8500 in some tests make the 8500 a piece of crap? That's what I'm hearing. It's going up against the top of the line card that is $50 more retail.

The 3 fastest cards out now are the ATI 8500, the GeForce 3 Ti500 and the GeForce 3. All 3 sound like great cards.

However, ATI needs to seriously work on their drivers to remain competitive. I want to replace my AIW Radeon with the 8500DV, but I won't be the first in line to pick one up.

 

[MoobyTheGoldenCalf]

<< Anand is waiting for true final drivers with all the features enabled to review the card, and it's the right decision IMO. >>



Where did you hear this? Just curious cuz I don't remeber seeing that anywhere.

BTW - Maybe that is what a lot of the other review sites are doing too. Last week when the Athlon XP reviews came out it seemed like all the major sites had their reviews up within minutes of each other. Now Tom has posted his and then . . . {crickets chirping} nothing.

One more BTW - You would think that ATI would wait to release the card until they had at least something resembling a working driver. If Tom's comments about Athlon & XP problems are true, ATI better hire some better driver programmers ASAP or they're going to have a tough time comming back from this one.

 

[OneOfTheseDays]

wow, i thought that based on the ati's kick ass 3dmark scores that it would own in most games. However this is not the case, look at the giants score. I think that ATI might have spent a little time optimizing for the main benchmarks, when real performance is really only on par with a regular gf3.

 

[Sugadaddy]

I supposed that's what Anand is doing, and he said he was waiting for ATI to send him drivers. (do you see a review on this site??? )


And I agree (even said it earlier in this thread), they should've waited. The crappy drivers brought ATI bad press with their preview of the R200, and now their crappy drivers are casting a shadow over its launch... I have no idea who's making the decisions concerning release dates at ATI, but I'm sure of one thing, he doesn't know much about hardware and drivers.

 

[Pocatello]

Some Savage 2000 owners are still waiting for good drivers . Perhaps S3 will implement T&L support.

 

[Sugadaddy]

<< Some Savage 2000 owners are still waiting for good drivers . Perhaps S3 will implement T&L support. >>




bah, if you bought a Savage 2000 you deserve to have bad drivers...

 

[Rage187]

<< Shakka, when the walls fell. >>


*(!@&%_#%!#@*^%^&_*#^&#*^#^_*

HAHAHAAHHAHAHAHAHAHA

"Darmak @ tinagra!! "



LOL, one of the cheesiest episodes...

 

[nortexoid]

uh, the drivers don't seem that bad at all...they need a bit of polishing of course, as the product has yet to be released..

however, it does seem they take too much time optimizing for 3dmark and perhaps quake3 than optimizing for ALL games...sad.

the card is still looking good to me even tho it loses in some old ass games like asteroids and centipede...

i beleive ati is more future-oriented...or at least tries to be by "future-proofing" their cards...

gimmie a break, the drivers aren't that bad...and one company MUST be on top...if it isn't ATI, it's obviously Nvidia...who says ATI has to be first in performance?...

 

[CopperHead]

Personally I'm hoping for two things:

1. Better drivers
2. A price war with nVidia so I can get one cheap

 

[Yzzim]

Rage3d trying to defend it's beloved card:

Tomshardware 8500 Review - 3:02 pm EST - Ichneumon [Comments (5)]
Well, I guess you can call it a review... Even they say it was rushed out the door and it sure shows. Not the kind of in-depth review you expect from such a reputable site as theirs. Apparantly being first to publish is more important than the details of the product.

Too bad SMOOTHVISION isn't implemented yet. I'm very anxious to see how it performs and how it looks. End of the month is when ATI says we'll see it.

Hit the review here.

Heh, I was going to put a snip here, but there isn't much text there for a worthwhile quote except the conclusion, and I'll let you read the review and draw your own conclusions.

Addition: I am continuously amused at how reviews have started to blame anything they can't explain easily on bad drivers. I'd like to see a review one of these days that explores the issues at hand at least a little bit instead of shunting anything that isn't straightforward off on the drivers.

 

[Finality]

<< Shakka, when the walls fell >>

BWHAHAHAHAHA

 

[MrHelpful]

Yeah but that site was approved by nVidia for reviews... The manufacturer ads here (and yes they pay for the forums in part) only tout their product.

 

[Rellik]

I found this on the rage3d forums;

First, the Unreal Tournament score. I could care less how it runs in Direct3D, I haven't run UT with that API in ages. Especially since the OpenGL renderer came out that supports the hi-res textures. Even on my Radeon 64Vivo I could run UT in OGL+hi-res at 1152x864x32bit and it was totally playable in a 10-bot match on my Athlon 800. From the sound of things, I should be able to up that resolution a bit when my 8500 arrives tomorrow and gets hooked up to my 1.4GHz T-bird.
Second, the day that 100fps at 1600x1200x32bit in Quake3 is not good enough for me is the day I have to stop playing computer games. To all those screaming that the Q3 scores prove the Ti 500's superiority, I say they need to get out more. I would GLADLY drop from 116 to 100fps to enjoy the beauty of the Radeon's image quality. If that is how the Radeon 8500 performs with supposedly "inferior" drivers, I'll take it, and I won't look back.



-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Also one should check the first GF3 test Anand did. The GF3 performed very bad indeed. Noone then screamed bad drivers because everybody knew once DX8 games will come out, and driver updates improve, it will be ok.

I will say that nvidia has a history of boosting card performance by more then 50 percent from initial release, but this makes me wonder if they are deliberatly holding back until any competiors release new cards(as with the Det4).

I guess we all need to sit back and wait until more sites review the card. If i can get my hands on one, I will run benches till the break of dawn for u guys. Yes, even for the nvidiots

 

[mchammer187]

i reserve judgement until Anand does a review

 

[RaynorWolfcastle]

I was really hoping for good drivers...

I hope its just that Tom in his haste forgot to check the
"Enable good drivers" checkbox


-Ice

 

[Jaraxal]

People seem disappointed that the Radeon 8500 doesn't trounce the GeForce Ti500 in EVERY benchmark. I'm excited that it does well in some benchmarks.

I don't care which card is faster. I want the best performing card for MY needs at MY price. A card doesn't have to win "hands down" in every benchmark to be considered good. Personally I don't care how well a card performs at Q3, as I don't play it. I play the occasional Q3 engine-based games. But that certainly won't influence my decisions. I want the card to perform WELL on MOST bechmarks. It doesn't have to be the BEST.

I feel that ATI has to work on drivers (at least release intervals, if not bugs and performance). But they also acknowledged that they need to improve in that area. That is step 1.

I'm giving it a until January before I make my purchase decision (Radeon 8500 or GeForce Ti 500).

 

[JellyBaby]

I dunno either ATI is incapable of providing rock solid drivers or they just don't care enough about QA to test enough scenarios. Either way, regardless of how the 8500 performs, I will avoid it. Their loss.

 

[MoobyTheGoldenCalf]

<< uh, the drivers don't seem that bad at all...they need a bit of polishing of course, as the product has yet to be released.. >>



Well, I'm not really concerned about the performance of the drivers right now. Given the raw power of the 8500, I think that will eventually come. What I am worried about is whether this thing will be stable on an Athlon running XP (which is exactly what I've got).

 

[KrispyKremer]

When the Radeon came out last year, it took a couple months for the drivers to become solid and stable. Yet, 6 months later and even up til now people bash the drivers as not working. Complete nonsense.

ATI has their work cut out for them, but I have faith they'll get things up to speed. At the same time, I wouldn't buy the card until this happens.

 

[jm0ris0n]

I don't know where these "windows 2000 Radeon Driver issues" come from. I've had 2000 Pro on my machine since Febuary this year and a Radeon from day one. All I can say is I am happy enough that I'm waiting for my 8500 to arrive and narry a doubt in my mind.

Also if you look for it GF3 TI500's in XP take a hit as well as the Radeon.

 

[j@cko]

<< I don't know where these "windows 2000 Radeon Driver issues" come from. I've had 2000 Pro on my machine since Febuary this year and a Radeon from day one. All I can say is I am happy enough that I'm waiting for my 8500 to arrive and narry a doubt in my mind. >>



I think Tom is referring to issues with Radeon 8500.

 

[Noj]

I don?t know why so many people are flaming Tom. It looks to me like ATI have dropped the ball, and the fact that Anand hasn?t published a review of the 8500 even though it?s already shipping supports that belief.