any new review of ati 8500?

[Garra]

I would like to know how is ati performing after the recent drivers releases.

 

[Rand]

Drivers still arento 100% reliable but they've made dramatic improvements, and their getting pretty good. Most users don't seem to be having any problems at all with them, though I've heard one or two say their still having a few problems.
Performance wise, the Retail 8500 performs a notch below of GF3 Ti500, though it's other benefits and cheaper price tend to off-set that for many people.
It's quite a bit faster then the Ti200.
The OEM 8500 performs about mid-way between the Ti200 and Ti500.
The AIW 8500 performs about equal to the GF3 Ti200.

ATi's improved the performance a bit with each of their last couple driver releases, so one has reason to hope for future performance improvements too.

Overall, I have no qualms about recommending the 8500 anymore.

 

[tenoc]

Rand, I agree. My Radeon 8500 on a ECS K7S5A with XP1700+ returns 3DMark2001 scores
of 7955 with 7206 drivers without o/c, more with o/c. Rock solid, no probs.