ATI's Next Generation
The Radeon 8500 and Radeon 7500 Review

Untapped Power

By Dave Altavilla
10/22/01

 

 

 

 

 

Please take note of our reference test system used for all graphics cards in this review.

HotHardware's Test Systems
Driven by Intel's Pentium 4
  • Intel Pentium 4 1.7GHz. Processor

  • Abit TH7-RAID Pentium 4 Motherboard

  • 256MB of Samsung PC800 RAMBUS DRDRAM

  • nVidia GeForce2 Ti, GeForce3 Ti200 and GeForce3 Ti500

  • ATi Radeon 8500 and ATi Radeon 7500

  • IBM DTLA307030 30Gig ATA100 7200 RPM Hard Drive

  • Windows 2000 Professional w/ SP2

  • Direct X 8.0a and nVidia Detonator 4 reference drivers version 21.83

  • ATi Performance Drivers Version 7.60-04

  • Intel chipset drivers version 3.20

Head-to-Head  Performance Progressions
The Battle Royal!

 

Let's first start out with our personal favorite, MadOnion's 3DMark 2001.  It is one fantastic DirectX 8 Gaming Benchmark.

 

 

 

 

The Radeon 8500 shows respectable performance against its bitter rival, the GeForce3 Ti500.  It actually out scores the NV powerhouse at 800X600 and 1024X768 resolutions in this 32 bit color test series.  However, when the resolution turns up to a peak 1600X1200, the R8500 lags slightly.  The Radeon 7500 bests the GeForce2 Ti card here but can't keep up with its DirectX 8 capable brethren. 

 

Max Payne Head 2 Head Performance
A street fight between two graphics giants!

 

The game engine used in 3DMark is the same technology by Remedy, that drives the fantastic new First Person Shooter, Max Payne.  Let's see how our contenders fair under the stress of the brutal streets of Max's world.

 

 

 

 

We used the time demos that were recorded by the folks at 3D Center.  This is a fairly stable and repeatable test.  It allows you to obtain an average frame rate from a recorded session demo file.  We tested exclusively in 32 bit color for this test.  What is surprising here is that the Radeon 8500 falls behind the GeForce3 cards here even though this game uses the same engine as 3D Mark 2001.

 

Let's look at the OpenGL side of things, shall we?

 


 

OpenGL Benchmarks - Vulpine and GLExess