ATI's Stan Ossias gave IMG a call this morning to let us know that the Radeon 8500 Mac Edition has officially begun shipping. The Radeon 8500 retail graphics board for the Mac features a core clock speed of 250 MHz and a memory clock speed of 275 MHz as well as 64 MB of DDR memory:

We started shipping a couple of day ago but we wanted to hold off on the official announcement until they actually got into stores. We are also going to be releasing updated drivers early next week that will support full screen anti-aliasing and offers improved OpenGL support.

• TRUFORM, ATI's innovative rendering technology that helps deliver smooth and natural 3D images in a performance-efficient manner;

• SMOOTHVISION, ATI's FSAA (Full Scene Anti-Aliasing) technology, designed to minimize jagged edges and smooth images;

• SMARTSHADER, ATI's advanced programmable pixel and vertex shader technology is also enabled in the GPU's hardware, allowing for more complex and realistic texture and lighting effects without sacrificing performance;

• HYPER Z II, a next-generation memory bandwidth saving technology that boosts rendering performance by 20 percent;

• CHARISMA ENGINE II, which supports transform, clipping and lighting (T & L) at 62.5 million triangles/second peak processing capability;

• PIXEL TAPESTRY II, the RADEON 8500's 3D rendering engine, which uses four rendering pipelines to process an incredible 2 gigatexels per second for incredibly high fill rates in 32-bit color at high resolutions; and

• VIDEO IMMERSION II, a second-generation technology that enables integration of industry-leading digital video features, including DVD (digital versatile disc) video playback and advanced de-interlacing algorithms for unprecedented video quality.

The AGP card, which is compatible with both Mac OS 9 and Mac OS X, is an ideal replacement for older, factory-installed graphics cards in Power Mac computers. It also features multiple display capability, supporting a variety of combinations of output through DVI-I, VGA, and TV-out connectors.

Be on the lookout for our review of the ATI Radeon 8500 Mac Edition soon. In the meantime, be sure to check out our preview.

IMG Preview: Radeon 8500 AGP

Radeon 8500 AGP (add to watch list)

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