Oooh, I'm going to enjoy tearing this one apart. Well... maybe I'll go easy, but only cause you're a forum stranger
First of all, that someone was not just 'someone', it was ME. Please do give me the credit there, won't you?
You also seem to have read only what you wanted to read. I said "Most of the information" concerning the Radeon II's performance is 'pure speculation' (upon which you went off on a misdirected rant), because MANY of the performance numbers being tossed around are concerning features such as Truform and Smoothvision that have NOT been enabled on ANY reference boards available to reviewers. Most people are also touting the 'potential' performance of ATI being vastly greater than the Geforce3, just because the drivers may leave room for improvement. I'm sorry, but ATI does not have a proven track record with their drivers, and this is their chance to turn that around. Until they do however, any assumption otherwise is PURE SPECULATION! You need to learn to discern the meat of an argument better rather than nitpicking someone's words and general expressions.
The reason behind Radeon's better showing in market growth in the past year was in part due to the general slowdown in the economy and less desire for high end cards. The midrange priced cards got the most attention from the average consumer, and Radeon did well to have several versions of their Radeon in the low end. Don't forget the AIW packages, something nVidia is only just now countering with Personal Cinema.
As to DOOM, I know exactly why it *should* run faster on the 8500, and it's not really a fault of the Geforce3's hardware. The Ge3 is already swiftly aging as far as new game software in development goes, and it is basically considered the minimum card level for playability of DOOM I believe. The 8500 may be be a few FPS above it, but the card generation after these two products will be the real target for that game.
I never once said ATI was in trouble except in jest, with the 3dfx reference. ATI has made the right moves to try and counter nVidia's massive growth, but the real question will be whether they can execute everything properly this fall/winter and whether or not their next gen product will take the speed crown from nVidia's next gen card.
The GameCube looks moderately interesting, but of course it has better hardware specs.... Nintendo has been waiting in the wings for years now so they can have the "last laugh" in the next generation console market. Hell... they've pretty much missed an entire console generation they've waited so long.
I don't care [-peep-] for Brand Loyalty, but ATI still has a ways to go to prove they can earn my money. My current card is a Ge2 GTS, so I'll be needing an upgrade next spring... the Ge3 vs. 8500 debate is pretty much a moot point for me in that case
"Laziness is a talent to be cultivated like any other" - Walter Slovotsky