Radeon 8500 drivers: Do you think there is still untapped performance?

[moocat]

I'm seriously beginning to wonder if there is still performance to be had from the 8500. I initially thought they might suprise us with a breakthrough performance driver but it has yet to happen and I'm not even hearing rumours anymore. When a chip looks faster on paper than it is in real life I just have to assume there were compromises in the logic design. Compromises are nearly always made in logic design and I'm beginning to wonder if the "software workarounds" that sometimes take the place of a good design are what's holding the 8500 back.

Don't get me wrong...I still think the 8500 is the best card for the money. I'm just a bit disappointed that there haven't been any significant improvements in performance since it's release.

 

[Rand]

Maybe slight gains, but nothing significant. Personally, I never though the design of the R8500 as a whole was significantly superior to that of the GF3 to begin with.
In theory it has somewhat more power, and certainly a vastly superior T&L engine, but the GF3's memory controller is lightyears beyond that of the R8500.... well maybe 'lightyears' isnt the appropriate term but it's far superior nonetheless.
More then enough to counter the fact that the R8500 theoretically has more available memory bandwidth.

 

[jiffylube1024]

I think it has some untapped potential (not very much but a little bit). Do I think it will every be tapped? No, not with ATI's record of leaving old cards in the dust; this is somewhat being rectified but I don't think they'll do anything drastic like nVidia did when they released Detonator 2 or 3 and it gave a 20% or so performance boost to the whole GeForce lineup.

 

[BFG10K]

I'd say there's a potential to squeeze maybe another 10%-15% but I also think that it'll never happen. ATi still has fundamental problems with their drivers that should have been solved months ago but haven't been. Until they can get the basics right there's no way they're going to produce performance out of mid-air like nVidia does.

 

[JeremiahTheGreat]

Well, if they truely have fixed that HPB in the newest drivers, then there is a crap load of previously untapped performance (but it's performance we should have got in the first place).

 

[Leon]

There is always "untapped" performance, in all cards.

 

[Killrose]

I'd say the 8500 has given all it's going to. Any tweaks done now will only help issues with the card with no real performance gains. But the card is definately a great performer, and now a great buy as well.

 

[AA0]

the last driver set seemed to hurt performance for bug fixes, I figure that they next drivers should bring the performance back, and add a little more.