Graphics Cards Compared

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Graphic cards compared
Chip Name	Radeon7500	Radeon8500	GeForce3Ti 200	GeForce3Ti 500
Core	RV200	R200	NV 20	NV 20
Manuf. Process	0.15 Micron	0.15 Micron	0.15 Micron	0.15 Micron
Chipclock	290 MHz	275 MHz	175 MHz	240 MHz
Memory Speed	460 MHz (DDR)	550 MHz (DDR)	400 MHz (DDR)	500 MHz (DDR)
Memory Type	SDRAM	SDRAM	SDRAM	SDRAM
Memory Bus	128Bit DDR	128Bit DDR	128Bit DDR	128Bit DDR
Memory Size	64 MB	64 MB	64 MB	64 MB
RAMDAC (S)	350/350 MHz	400/400 MHz	350 MHz	350 MHz
DualDisplay	YES	YES	-	-
Businterface	AGP 1x/2x/4x	AGP 2x/4x	AGP 1x/2x/4x	AGP 1x/2x/4x
T&L	YES	YES	YES	YES
DirectXGeneration	DX7	DX8	DX8	DX8
Pixel Shader	-	YES	YES	YES
Vertex Shader	-	YES	YES	YES
Render Pipelines	2	4	4	4
Teturen per Pipe	3	3	2	2

Student Driver

Unfortunately, on the driver front the Radeon 8500 has left a lot to be desired. Instead of SmoothVision anti-aliasing, the drivers only support the older (and slower) SuperSampling method. The stability of the Windows XP driver left much to be desired, as did its performance. The "Nature Test" in 3DMark2001 would regularly reboot the computer it was run on. Interestingly, this problem did not occur on a Pentium 4 under Windows XP. 3DMark2000, on the other hand, required up to 5 tries to complete even one successful run under Windows XP (with both CPU's), as it kept exiting to the Windows desktop. This happened both on the Pentium 4 and the Athlon.