Rating: 
Summary: Not that bad
Review: ATI has always come out with the good technology before NVIDIA has, but things have gotten in the way. Mostly driver problems have made ATI's graphics cards piles of junk. This card is an acception. ATI has had enough of being behind in the buisness. They have finally come out with a great new card!I have had the 8500 for about 8 months now, and I have to tell you that I have not been very dissapointed (except for the GeForce 4 coming out RIGHT after the release of the 8500) :( I have to admit, that the graphics are highly improved. I never imagined an ATI card giving off better graphics power than the GeForce 3. RTCW, SS2, MOHAA, UT, Q3A, they all look better with this card. I like the good antistropic filtering with this card. Makes a great difference. I like the dual monitor support, svideo out, and other features that make computer multimedia fun on the tv. Svideo is great. You can download your favorite high quality DivX movies, and have the ATI software fit it dirrectly into the tv screen, and also make it dvd quality. Just be warned that you will have to hear the sound from your speakers that are hooked up to your computer. This is a slight incovenience. Here is what I would recommend for the 8500. Anything lower than this and you may and probably will see system problems like repeated rebooting and very slow framerates: ATLEAST 500mhz P3
ATLEAST 80mb of ram
ATLEAST Windows 98 (Me, Xp, 2000 are good too watch out for NT though) I had a 450mhz system with 64mb of ram when I first bought my 8500, and before I upgraded just about everything to a 1.1 ghz amd athlon t-bird and 512mb DDr ram and XP, this video card was giving me no love whatsoever (especially in games). My only wish is that the drivers would be improved so that games would look up to par with the GeForce 4 (they are very close though). In all, this card is great. It has better features and graphics than the GeForce 3, and is ALMOST as powerful as the GeForce 4, but at half the price.
Rating: 
Summary: Fast card
Review: ATi has finally started making some good drivers so the card runs very smoothly.
Very good costomer support from ATI, this is my first ATI card and I love it.
Very good price too, if you want to play games on High Resolution this is the card to go with.
ATI keep up the good work
Rating:
Summary: nice work ATI
Review: ATI used to forfeit the driver quality game to nVidia, but with the 8500, things seemed to have changed for the better.
This is the card to get if you can't afford Nvidia's Geforce4 Ti 4600 or can't find Geforce4 Ti 4200 in stock (as was the case when I bought this card).
Rating:
Summary: Great value, brute force
Review: First off let me help you novices out there a little bit. Don't buy a video card because of its price, its hype, or its look, do your research! This card is excellent, it is blazingly fast, (it beats geforce 3), and it is a steal... BR>A key feature in the radeon 8500 is the programmable pixel shaders. Let me tell you a little more about them. Geforce 3, 4 and radeon 8500 all share them witht he exception with the Geforce 4 MX. The newest games will use programmable pixel shaders and if you don't have a video card that uses this, then you can't play it. The radeon beats its competition while being half the price! but be cautious because there has been driver issues with ATI and what seems to be "cheating drivers" Pros:
blazingly fast
comes from a respectable company
excellent image quality
cons:
driver issues
Rating:
Summary: great graphics for the money
Review: great for gaming. With dual head monitor support + DVI & TV out, the 64 MB memory on this Card and the extremely affordable pricepoint make it one of the best options available today. If you are a hard-core CG effects person, this won't be the best option, but otherwise, it is the way to go.
Rating: 
Summary: Plagued with problems
Review: I bought a Radeon 8500 to replace my Radeon 7000. When I first installed it the performance and frame rate just blew me away. But then I found out that my card has problems running games and 3d apps. I got a headache from trying to fix it and I'm going to have to send it back to ATI for a replacement.
Rating: 
Summary: A third Chance!
Review: I bought this card with high expectations when it first came out and was disapointed becasue the Number 2 graphics company "Ati" at the time, in the world did not release a decent hardware driver in not one but two months! After sitting in my old cabinet drawer I call the morgue becasue it's full of old computer parts. I decided to take the card out and give it a 3rd chance. I couldn't belive my eye's as I saw soldier of Fortune 2, and Battle Feild 1942 and a few of my old games run well. This card work's perfect after I gave up and bought a pricey Xtasy Ti 4600 that is now obsolete becasue of Ati's 9700 pro! Before I bought any of the above hardware I read most hardware article's online and in print. To name a few sources I read in print and the net: Smart computing, Maximum PC, Tom's hardware guide. com, zd-net and c-net. Were did I go wrong, I bought impulsively. It wasn't too long ago when you bought the very best hardware for your PC and It would last you at least a year before it was considerd a antique. Not anymore, we just jumped in to a new age were new computer hardware keeps coming out every few months. Not even the PC hardware publications can keep up with some of the new hardware inovations. Why do I say this. I read the above sources religously and they didn't even give anyone a warning untill two month's before the release of the new Ati 9700 pro! My advise, as soon as some new hardware comes out and computer publications online or print give it all the hype and glory setting and breaking record bench marks to the point were you feel as though you have to have it, Stop throw some cold water on your face and wait a few month's. The end result you will have more choices and you will save a lot of cash$$$.
Rating:
Summary: Stick to another brand
Review: I have had this card for 4 months now, and Ati still has not gotten their drivers worked out. They have improved slightly, but just about every game I play (Aliens vs Predator 2, Serious Sam 2, Serious Sam 1, Tribes, RTCW, MOHAA) has stuttering and freezing problems that last for up to 2 seconds. My Voodoo 5500 runs much better than this card. I do have to say that the graphics are outstanding though. But that means nothing if you have to put up with substandard performance. My system is and Amd athlon 850, 256 pc100ram, samsung 6gig hd, soundblaster live. I have tweaked and played with this card for 4 months and am disappointed. If you want a stable card stick with Nvidia.
Rating:
Summary: Great Card, Great Price!
Review: I have had this card for about 6 months now. I got it before the GForce 4 came out and before the Radeon 9700. If your looking to get the MOST for your money this card is the way to go. It's faster then the all the GForce 3's and is just as fast as the GEorce4Ti 4200, for a fraction of the cost. Driver support was an issue in the past as you will read in some of the older reviews of this card, but now ATI has fixed all the driver problems they have had in the past. In fact they have been coming out with drivers faster and of a better quality then Nvidia for about the past six months. If you buy this card I recomend downloading the newest drivers from the ATI website as soon as possible, the new drivers are of MUCH better quality as I said before... To get the most out of your older games with this card to to your display properties- advanced- Direct3d or openGL, and bump the Anisotropic Filtering up to 16.With little or no performance hit your games will look MUCH better.
Rating:
Summary: Great Card, Great Price!
Review: I have had this card for about 6 months now. I got it before the GForce 4 came out and before the Radeon 9700. If your looking to get the MOST for your money this card is the way to go. It's faster then the all the GForce 3's and is just as fast as the GEorce4Ti 4200, for a fraction of the cost. Driver support was an issue in the past as you will read in some of the older reviews of this card, but now ATI has fixed all the driver problems they have had in the past. In fact they have been coming out with drivers faster and of a better quality then Nvidia for about the past six months. If you buy this card I recomend downloading the newest drivers from the ATI website as soon as possible, the new drivers are of MUCH better quality as I said before... To get the most out of your older games with this card to to your display properties- advanced- Direct3d or openGL, and bump the Anisotropic Filtering up to 16.With little or no performance hit your games will look MUCH better.
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