 |
Radeon 8500 Comparison Tests Available
9:26 AM | Eddie Park | Comment on this story
Mac performance site Accelerate Your Mac! has recently posted preliminary test results on ATI's latest monster, the Radeon 8500. Featuring full screen anti-aliasing (FSAA) and able to support two monitors right out of the box, this new graphics card has many Mac gamers speculating as to its true capabilities. The review itself contains a small tilt as to the reviewer's first impressions: The 8500 is the first card I've seen on the Mac since the Voodoo5 that actually has support in current titles for some of its advanced features. (I'm still waiting for support of my GeForce3's advanced features for instance. FSAA enabled drivers for the original Radeon AGP are said to be released soon, but not yet and it doesn't have the horsepower of the 8500.) Every graphics card I've seen so far is a compromise — none excel at everything. Although I think there's room for improvement in the drivers, considering the 8500's cost is only about $100 more than what the original Radeon AGP is selling for at some sources, it's by far the most attractive Mac graphics card to date. The preliminary tests, which were done on a dual 1 GHz G4, pit the 8500 against every other AGP graphics card currently available for the Mac, including the 7500, the original Radeon, and the Geforce2 MX, 4 MX, and 3. An exhaustive battery of tests, including several benchmarking programs and games run at various resolutions, produced an interesting gamut of results. For those who swear by Quake III for benchmarking, it must be noted that the reviewer found that the 8500 scored the highest running at 1600x1200x32 bits. However, the GeForce3 scored considerably better when run through a battery of Unreal Tournament tests, even when subjected to RAVE mode.However, as most gamers know, even the most stringent tests and latest hardware specs don't necessarily guarantee unquestionable results. Curiously, in Photoshop 5.5 scrolling tests, the Geforce4 MX managed to trump both the GeForce3 and the Radeon 8500 by a fairly large margin. Readers interested in seeing the full slew of test results can find the entire review at Accelerate Your Mac.
 IMG Preview: Radeon 8500 AGP
IMG Feature: Radeon 8500 in the Flesh
 Accelerate Your Mac: Comparing the Radeon 8500
Radeon 8500 (add to watch list)
Recent Mac Games News Friday, March 1, 2002
Thursday, February 28, 2002
Wednesday, February 27, 2002
Tuesday, February 26, 2002
Monday, February 25, 2002
|
Search for other Mac games news stories or browse our Mac Games News Archive.
|
|
