ASE Labs: Previews - Radeon 8500 review (All BIOSes)

Page 1: Intro, Overview

Introduction: 
As you may know, there are plenty of Radeon 8500 reviews out there already. I'm not only going to go over the numbers of the card itself, but how I turned this humble little Radeon LELE into a retail Radeon, in the process, saving a pretty penny. Please don't try to upgrade your Radeon unless you are sure that you have tested it to make sure it will work or you are a complete nut like me and just did it. Since this is my first real video card review, all the options that I wanted to test didn't work correctly for me so this review may be a bit light on the benchmarks, but there is enough to determine the quality of the card. Now, on to the background about the card. 

Background I bought this card from the great people at Newegg. It was labeled the Radeon 8500 LE OEM. It also said that the clock and memory where set at 230/230mhz. I thought this was a bit low and I ordered it anyway thinking that the card should come with the standard LE settings of 250/250. Upon receiving the card, I ran some benchmarks on it and it was absolutely stunning with its original state. In the duration of this article, I shall call the original BIOS the 'Newegg' BIOS. Since I was relatively happy with the performance, why should I want to potentially ruin my card by upgrading the BIOS of the card? Simple, when your a gamer, frame-rate is life. That and your ping are very important! 
Card features: (Ripped from ATI's website) 
<table><tr><td>
Overview 
 At-a-glance 
<ul><li>Powered by the revolutionary RADEON™ 8500 – world’s fastest and most advanced graphics processing unit (GPU)</li> <li>Features ATI's <a href="http://www.ati.com/na/pages/technology/hardware/truform/truform.html">TRUFORM™</a>, <a href="http://www.ati.com/na/pages/technology/hardware/smartshader/smartshader.html">SMARTSHADER™,</a> <a href="http://www.ati.com/na/pages/technology/hardware/smoothvision/smoothvision.pdf">SMOOTHVISION™</a>, and HYPER™ Z II technologies</li> <li>The only GPU to support DirectX® 8.1</li> <li>Supports OpenGL® 1.3 features</li> <li>64MB of powerful double data rate (DDR) memory</li> <li>Latest 3D games support the advanced features of RADEON™ 8500</li> <li>Dual monitor and Video output support</li> <li>Industry-leading DVD video playback</li> <li>Digital Flat Panel (DVI) support</li> <li>Supports 3D resolutions (32-bit color) up to 2048x1536</li> <li>AGP universal bus (for AGP 2X/4X systems)</li> 

</td></tr>
</table>
 
<a name="features"></a>

<table><tr>
<td>
Features 

</td></tr>
</table>

<table><tr>

<td valign="top">

<table>
<tr><td>
Unsurpassed 3D gaming 
<ul><li>Powered by the revolutionary RADEON™ 8500 GPU and 64MB of DDR memory for the fastest and most advanced 3D graphics on the market</li> <li>Features ATI’s innovative <a href="http://www.ati.com/na/pages/technology/hardware/truform/truform.html">TRUFORM™</a> technology that makes the outlines of 3D characters and objects look smoother and more natural than ever before</li> <li>High resolution 32-bit 3D gaming up to 2048x1536</li> <li>ATI’s HYPER Z™ II technology conserves memory bandwidth for improved performance in demanding applications and boosts effective bandwidth by over 25% </li> <li>SMOOTHVISION™ anti-aliasing – the most advanced anti-aliasing to eliminate distracting visual artifacts for smoother looking images and without serious performance compromise</li> 
</td></tr>
</table>

</td></tr>
</table>

<table><tr>

<td valign="top">

<table>
<tr><td>
Best visual effects 
<ul><li>ATI’s new <a href="http://www.ati.com/na/pages/technology/hardware/smartshader/smartshader.html">SMARTSHADER™</a> technology takes advantage of the DirectX® 8.1 features to enable more complex and realistic texture and lighting effects </li> <li>The only graphics board to support DirectX® 8.1</li> <li>Best performance for today’s and tomorrow’s demanding applications</li> <li>Full support and compliance with OpenGL® 1.3 applications</li> <li>CHARISMA ENGINE™ II supports full Transformation, Clipping and Lighting (T&L) at 75 million triangles/second peak processing capability</li> <li>PIXEL TAPESTRY™ II, the RADEON™ 8500 3D rendering engine, powers an incredible 2.4 Gigatexels per second for the highest fill rates in 32-bit at high resolutions</li> 
</td></tr>
</table>

</td></tr>
</table>

<table><tr>

<td valign="top">
<table>
<tr><td>
Dual monitor support 
<ul><li>Leading-edge HydraVision™ technology supports traditional CRT monitors, flat panel displays and TVs</li> <li>Multi-task with MultiDesk – play multi-monitor games, or work in different applications on each monitor without having to switch back-and-forth</li> <li>Assign ‘Hot Key’ shortcuts for the most used functions</li> <li>Vary settings from one application to the next, or choose global settings that determine the behavior of windows and dialog boxes for all applications in your multi-monitor environment</li> <li>Learn more about <a href="http://www.ati.com/na/pages/products/pc/hydrademo/choose.html">HYDRAVISION™ </a></li> 
 
</UL>
Industry-leading video playback 
<ul><li>ATI’s VIDEO IMMERSION™ II technology enables integration of industry-leading digital video features, including advanced de-interlacing algorithms for unprecedented video quality and integrated digital TV decode capability</li> <li>Includes programmable gamma for the overlay and Frame Rate Conversion (Temporal Filtering)</li> <li>Hardware DVD saves the expense of buying a separate MPEG-2/DVD decoder card and motion compensation allows for DVD decoding with minimum CPU usage</li> <li>HDTV ready</li> 
 
</UL>
DVI and TV/Video output support 
<ul><li>RADEON™ 8500 uses RAGE THEATER™ companion chip for high quality video output</li> <li>Features 165MHz integrated TMDS transmitter to support DVI up to UXGA (1600x1200) resolution</li> <li>Get all of the incredible 3D and DVD of RADEON™ 8500 with the benefit of flat panels – crisper images, significantly reduced eyestrain and space savings</li> <li>Use video-out to connect your PC to TV or VCR</li> 
</td></tr>
</table>

</td></tr>
</table>

 

<table>
<tr>
<td width="71%">

<a name="specifications"></a>

<table>
<tr><td valign="top">
Specifications 
 System requirements 
<ul><li>Pentium® 4/III/II/Celeron™, AMD® K6/Athlon® or compatible with AGP 2X or AGP 2X/4X universal slot</li> <li>64MB of system memory</li> <li>Installation software requires CD-ROM drive</li> <li>DVD playback requires DVD drive</li> 
</td></tr>
<tr><td>
 
</td></tr>
<tr><td>
Graphics controller 
<ul><li>RADEON™ 8500 graphics processing unit (GPU)</li> 
</td></tr><tr><td>
 
</td></tr><tr><td>
Memory configuration 
<ul><li>64MB of double data rate memory</li> 
</td></tr><tr><td>
 
</td></tr><tr><td>
Operating systems support 
<ul><li>Windows® 98/98SE</li> <li>Windows® Me</li> <li>Windows® 2000</li> <li>Windows® XP</li> 
</td></tr><tr><td>
 
</td></tr><tr><td>
Monitor support 
<ul><li>CRT Monitor: 15-pin VGA connector</li> <li>TV and VCR: s-video or composite connector</li> <li>DVI-I (flat panel display) connector</li> 
</td></tr><tr><td>
 
</td></tr><tr><td>
Display support 
<ul><li>Register compatible with VGA</li> <li>BIOS compatible with VESA for super VGA</li> <li>DDC1/2b/2b+ monitor support</li> <li>VESA Display Power Management Support</li> <li>Separate horizontal and vertical synchronization at TTL levels</li> 
</td></tr><tr><td>
 
</td></tr><tr><td>
Features 
<ul><li><a href="http://www.ati.com/na/pages/technology/hardware/truform/truform.html">TRUFORM™</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.ati.com/na/pages/technology/hardware/smartshader/smartshader.html">SMARTSHADER™</a></li> <li>DirectX® 8.1 support</li> <li>OpenGL® 1.3</li> <li>SMOOTHVISION™ anti-aliasing</li> <li>HYPER Z™ II</li> <li>CHARISMA ENGINE™ II</li> <li>PIXEL TAPESTRY™ II</li> <li>VIDEO IMMERSION™ II</li> <li>High Performance Memory Support</li> <li>Dual Display Support</li> <li>Integrated Transformation, Clipping and Lighting</li> <li>Twin Cache Architecture</li> <li>SuperScalar Rendering</li> <li>Single-Pass Multi-texturing</li> <li>True Color Rendering</li> <li>Triangle Setup Engine</li> <li>Texture Cache</li> <li>Bilinear/Trilinear Filtering</li> <li>Line & Edge Anti-aliasing</li> <li>Full-Screen Anti-aliasing</li> <li>Texture Compositing</li> <li>Texture Decompression</li> <li>Specular Highlights</li> <li>Perspectively Correct Texture Mapping</li> <li>Mip-Mapping</li> <li>Z-buffering and Double-buffering</li> <li>Emboss, Dot Product 3 and Environment bump mapping</li> <li>Spherical, Dual-Paraboloid and Cubic environment mapping</li> <li>Fog effects, texture lighting, video textures, reflections, shadows, spotlights, LOD biasing and texture morphing</li> 
</td></tr></table></table>

Radeon 8500 review (All BIOSes)

Page 1: Intro, Overview

Title