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Once again we
find ourselves in the fall season with too many new "toys"
to possibly even consider for the coming holidays.
However, 3D Graphics Cards seem to heat up this time of
year, more so it seems, than any other technology for the
Personal Computer. Furthermore, the frenzy and hype
surrounding these products is more intense and vigorous than
almost any new product for the PC, save perhaps the recent
GHz. race between AMD and Intel. The pages of the internet
have been buzzing with information about the possibility of
the only real threat to nVidia's relentless design and
manufacturing machine of leading edge 3D graphics for the
PC.
One of the few
remaining competitors,
ATi
Technologies, had dominated the PC Graphics arena
for many years before the likes of the now extinct 3dfx and
of course today's current leader,
nVidia.
ATi has managed to maintain relative profitability during
the recent economic downturn, all the while developing
technology that would compete and possibly overthrow it's
fierce rival, even within its core strength, Power 3D
Graphics for the enthusiast. Finally, ATi has also
been honing its already strong offering in the value and OEM
segments, preparing to up the anti in the price/performance
and features race.
And so it is
with these lofty goals in mind, that we "peel back the
onion", so to speak, with respect to ATi's next generation
technologies. In the following pages, we'll show you
the hardware, software, features and performance within the
latest offerings from ATi Technologies, those widely known
now as the
Radeon 8500 and
Radeon 7500 lines. Can somebody finally design and
manufacture a "GeForce 3 killer"? What about something
for the folks who don't want to mortgage their home for a
graphics card? Can ATi deliver in the value space as
well? We'll try to answer all this and more in the
pages to follow.
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Specifications Of The ATi Radeon 8500 and Radeon
7500 Graphics Cards |
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Great power on paper
and within the specs |
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Radeon 7500
Features & Specs
- Powered by the RADEON?
7500 graphics processing unit (GPU)
- High performance 3D
graphics featuring ATI?s CHARISMA ENGINE?, PIXEL
TAPESTRY? and HYPER Z? technologies
- RADEON? 7500 display
engine enables many combinations of CRT (VGA), digital
flat panel (DVI), and TV displays.
- Hydravision? Multiple
Monitor Management Software provides a flexible,
user-friendly interface for multiple display settings
- Supports DirectX 8.0®
and OpenGL®
- Features DVI interface
with integrated 165MHz TMDS transmitter for
resolutions up to 1600 x 1200
- Industry-leading DVD
video playback
- Supports 3D
resolutions (32-bit color) up to 2048x1536
- AGP universal bus (for
AGP 2X/4X systems)
Features:
- High performance 3D
and 2D
- RADEON? 7500 comes
powered by up to 64MB of DDR memory to accelerate
latest 2D and 3D graphics, productivity applications
and games
- Delivers immersive,
realistic 32-bit true color graphics without
performance decline
- High resolution 32-bit
3D graphics up to 2048x1536
- Full support of and
compliance with powerful DirectX® and OpenGL®
applications
- CHARISMA ENGINE?
supports full Transformation, Clipping and Lighting
(T&L) at up to 40.0 million triangles/second peak
processing capability
- Features HYPER? Z
technology to boost effective memory bandwidth by over
20% (8.8 GB/sec)
- PIXEL TAPESTRY?, the
RADEON? 7500 3D rendering engine, powers an incredible
1.6 Gigatexels per second for unsurpassed graphics
performance
- Flexible dual monitor
support
- RADEON? 7500
technology supports combinations of traditional CRT
monitors, flat panel displays and TV
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Radeon 8500
Features and Specs
- Powered by the
revolutionary RADEON? 8500 GPU
- Features ATI's TRUFORM?,
SMARTSHADER?, SMOOTHVISION?, and HYPER? Z II
technologies
- Supports DirectX® 8.1
- Supports OpenGL® 1.3
features
- 64MB of powerful
double data rate (DDR) memory
- The Latest 3D games
support the advanced features of RADEON? 8500
- Dual monitor and Video
output support
- Industry-leading DVD
video playback
- Digital Flat Panel (DVI)
support
- Supports 3D
resolutions (32-bit color) up to 2048x1536
- AGP universal bus (for
AGP 2X/4X systems)
Features:
- Unsurpassed 3D gaming
- Powered by the
revolutionary RADEON? 8500 GPU and 64MB of DDR memory
for the fastest and most advanced 3D graphics on the
market
- Features ATI?s
innovative TRUFORM? technology that makes the outlines
of 3D characters and objects look smoother and more
natural than ever before
- High resolution 32-bit
3D gaming up to 2048x1536
- Features HYPER? Z
technology to boost effective memory bandwidth by over
20% (8.8 GB/sec)
- SMOOTHVISION?
anti-aliasing ? the most advanced anti-aliasing to
eliminate distracting visual artifacts for smoother
looking images and without serious performance
compromise
- ATI?s new SMARTSHADER?
technology takes advantage of the DirectX® 8.1
features to enable more complex and realistic texture
and lighting effects
- CHARISMA ENGINE? II
supports full Transformation, Clipping and Lighting
(T&L) at 75 million triangles/second peak processing
capability
- 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
- Dual monitor support
- Leading-edge
HydraVision? technology supports traditional CRT
monitors, flat panel displays and TVs
- 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
- Includes programmable
gamma for the overlay and Frame Rate Conversion
(Temporal Filtering)
- Hardware DVD MPEG 2
Decoding Support
- HDTV ready
- DVI and TV/Video
output support
- RADEON? 8500 uses RAGE
THEATER? companion chip for high quality video output
- Features 165MHz
integrated TMDS transmitter to support DVI up to UXGA
(1600x1200) resolution
- Use video-out to
connect your PC to TV or VCR
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Competitive Technology
Comparisons
Radeon
7500
Let's
start with the Radeon 7500 (pictured on left). Here we
see essentially a die shrink of the original Radeon, down to
.15 micron technology. This allows ATI to crank the
clock speed up to a blazing 290MHz. The memory
controller on the original Radeon was able to support
200MHz. DDR SDRAM. Now, 230MHz. DDR for a total of 460MHz.
aggregate bandwidth is possible. This brings the
memory bandwidth up to par with a GeForce3 "classic" if you
will, at a solid 7.4 Gigabytes per second. However,
the R7500 falls shy in rendering pipelines with only 2,
versus even a GeForce2 Ti 200 with 4. The third
texture unit on the R7500 was a strong selling point back in
the day of the Radeon's initial release. However to
this day, that 3rd. texturing unit is rarely utilized by
developers and current 3D gaming platforms. Other than
that, Hyper-Z, the
Charisma Engine and Pixel Tapestry are all technologies
that you are probably familiar with from
our review of the original Radeon back in July of
2000.
Radeon 8500
As you can imagine, the Radeon
8500 is really the star of this show. Here ATI uses
the same .15 micron process but the chip that the Radeon
8500 is built around is 60 million transistors,
approximately twice the size of the R7500. Here a
275MHz. core is supported by 275MHz. DDR or 550MHz. DRAM
subsystem, for a total of 8.8 Gigabytes per second of
bandwidth, surpassing nVidia' flagship GeForce3 Ti500.
ATi achieves this level of performance with the advancement
of their Hyper-Z II technology, a lossless compression
algorithm which allows them to drive up to 20% more
bandwidth within the memory system. Also, ATi has
evened the score with respect to rendering pipelines and
texture units. Finally, with fully programmable pixel
and vertex shaders (ATi's "Smart Shader" technology, there
are a host of new visual effects and features that have been
added.
Let's take a quick look at some
of those special affects and features.
New Features
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