Foreword

With the Radeon 8500, ATI has caused graphics cards for the time being for a new reference in the high end. But how it looks in the medium and price performance segment?

The good old Radeon ATI has meanwhile already some on the knob and can measure is no longer with the competition from the House of NVIDIA who have put the bar in the mid-end graphics cards area quite high with their GeForce2 TI.

Different than is usual for NVIDIA, it uses ATI but not about a slimmed-down version of the Radeon 8500, but a smaller manufacturing technology, missed the old Radeon1-chip simply drove the clock rate to above, spendierte him a second RAMDAC and a TV-out function. The result is the Radeon 7500, we wanted to look once more. To do this we have accessed 7500 PowerMagic Radeon, which you can buy for example in CompuFlash for DM 336,-.

Scope of delivery

In the package you will find even a small manual (quick installation guide), a driver CD, that includes Directx8.0 with the current drivers for each system, and a CD of the DVD software PowerDVD 3.0. in addition to the actual video card games or other extras not included in unfortunately the show the. For this you get included all necessary cables and adapters but commendable, you need about to connect to the TV or a second monitor:

• S-video cable
• S-Video composite adapter
• Composite cable (cinch)
• DVI-I to VGA adapter (for connecting a second analog monitor to the digital output)

The design of the map is oriented clearly to the ATI reference design and differs only by the sticker with the PowerMagic of its ATI original logo on the fan. A particularly stylish or extravagant design, as rage at some other graphics card manufacturers in the moment, it has abandoned at PowerMagic. As well, also the 4ns fast memory distributed to eight blocks on the top and bottom has no additional cooling. This is also not necessary as he with 230MHz (460 DDR) under its maximum specification of 250 MHz (500) operated and thus in the normal operation of any additional cooling is needed. This could look different course when overclocking, but to do this we come later.

Technology

In our test we let the PowerMagic Radeon 7500 immediately against a whole range of graphics cards made by NVIDIA. ATI itself writes to a performance of the Radeon 7500 that to move between a GeForce2 Pro and ultra, so exactly like a GeForce2 TI. This supposedly strongest competitor of the Radeon 7500 could not be missing in our test. To enable a comparison with a graphics card from the high-end segment, we have specified also the results of the GeForce3 Ti200 when all benchmarks. Now we enter but first closer to the technical features of our opponents:

With the clock speed of the chip of the Radeon 7500, it behaves like when the Radeon 8500: cards from ATI with a core clock of 290MHz shipped, third-party cards but only with 270MHz. Because the cards are identical in construction, one wonders but about the sense or nonsense of this use. Otherwise, it falls to that the Radeon 7500 has only two rendering pipelines, for it but each can handle at once equal to three textures. MTexel/s resulting in computationally 1740, however most games use only the function to calculate two textures, so that here the Radeon is held back by their two rendering pipelines in many games on 1160 MTexel/s at a time. 8.8 GB/s memory bandwidth can be reached by the well-known from the old Radeon cards and with the Radeon 8500, hyper Z revised technology. The card offers thanks to their two RAMDAC with each assembled the image at the same time with different settings issue the way on two monitors or a monitor and a TV. This feature closely resembles the TwinView technology from NVIDIA or the Matrox G400-550 cards. ATI has set is therefore the task, to produce a dual-display graphics card with very good 3D performance, with which you would like to put out the other dual-display graphics cards from Matrox and NVIDIA.

Test system

As a test system an AMD Athlon C 1333MHz with 266 MHz FSB on the recently tested was QDI KinetiZ 7E-A legend used. We used Windows XP Professional as the operating system. Here we had the built-in VIA 4in1 driver and DirectX 8.1 unchanged, to ensure comparability with the results of other graphics cards. Increasingly, players put on Windows 2000, and now the successor, so we deliberately use Windows XP for the tests. The benefits of Windows XP outweigh Windows 98 I think also so strong, that there is actually no reason to put, even if one loses sometimes may be a few frames not even while playing on this OS. This decision depends but of course also always by the hardware you have available. All NVIDIA graphics cards have been tested with the official detonator in the version of 21.83. The video cards were checked as regards their bar and tested with the frequency with which they were delivered. The Radeon 7500 was 6.13.3276 in the version with the most recently available drivers for Windows XP.

• Processor
  • AMD Athlon C 1333MHz
• Motherboard
  • legend qdi KinetiZ 7E-A BIOS v3. 6
• Memory
  • 2 x 128 MB PC133 SDRAM
• Graphics card
  • Inno3D tornado GeForce2 TI
  • Inno3D Tornardo GeForce3 Ti200
  • PowerMagic Radeon 7500
• Peripherals
  • Seagate ST36531A
  • Maxtor 92041U4
  • Philips PCCD048
  • Ricoh MP-7060A
  • Creative Sound Blaster Live! 5.1
  • Realtek RTL8139(A) PCI Fast Ethernet adapter
• Other
  • Microsoft Intelli mouse Explorer
• Software
  • Windows XP Professional

Benchmarks

So that the result of the benchmarks covering both current and future games engines, both DirectX and DirectX 7 were 8-based benchmarks used. It did both OpenGL and Direct3D. In addition to real-world benchmarks but also synthetic benchmarks such as the 3DMarks were used. Because you nothing more can have on the 2D-Leistung of today’s video cards, because they all provide enough power, we have renounced such tests.

• DirectX 7.0
  • 3DMark 2000-1.1 (benchmark)
  • VillageMark (benchmark)
• DirectX 8.0
  • 3DMark 2001 (benchmark)
  • Aquanox Aquamark 2.1 (action-game)
• OpenGL
  • Vulpine GL mark 2001 1.1 (benchmark)
  • GL excess 1.1 (benchmark)
  • Quake 3 arena 1.17 (first-person shooter)

3DMark2000

The 3DMark 2000 has found a successor already, is however very well suited to give a statement about the Direct3D performance of graphics cards. Its results can indeed be transferred to games, because it is a synthetic benchmark, but it is used everywhere and is one of them simply to each test.

Under 16-bit, can the Radeon 7500 compete in any way with the other from NVIDIA and falls back significantly. In 32-bit, the leaf from a resolution of 1280 x 1024 looks but then slightly differently. Here, the higher memory bandwidth of the Radeon 7500 seems suddenly to give yourself a head start, so that she, even if only just, can place even before the GeForce2 TI.

VillageMark

Originally, this benchmark was developed by PowerVR and served them to illustrate the benefits of Kyro2, because in the VillageMark, the Overdraw is particularly large. I.e. most graphics cards calculate also the items that are hidden by others and should therefore not be calculated.

In 16-bit, the Radeon 7500 can this time everywhere cut out the GeForce2 Pro, but not quite approaches on the GeForce2 TI.

Under 32-bit again a completely different picture. The Radeon 7500 can break away quite clearly Pro and TI in all resolutions against the GeForce2. Like already in the 3DMark 2000 falls on here again, that the Radeon 7500 in 32-bit relative to the NVIDIA card breaks less. However this is likely on the poor performance in 16-bit to push on one particularly good in 32-bit.

3DMark2001

The big brother of 3DMark 2000 is designed especially for DirectX 8 features, used cards but only by the GeForce3. The predecessors are here certainly only partially good results to expect. This benchmark is a point of reference for the performance of graphics cards in future games.

In 16-bit the Radeon 7500 must be beaten again the GeForce2 Pro, as well as the GeForce2 Ti, if even more scarce than ever before. In 32-bit, it turns the result again for their benefit and sets from even in the higher resolutions ever more clearly the TI and Pro. Against the GeForce3 Ti200 she has once again of course no chance, because it is at home in a different price and performance class.

Aquamark

The Aquamark is based on the blatantly engine as well as the recently erschienende game “Aquanox”. He uses the new DirectX 8 features such as pixel shader excessively. Aquanox are the frame rates, by the way, significantly higher than the values obtained in the benchmark.

Old familiar under 16-bit. Again, the Radeon 7500 here not to the other cards can come. In 32-bit, the Radeon 7500 of this time not on the competition, but at least can match. This fact is once again, that the Radeon 7500 of far less frames in 32-bit loses, do as this all NVIDIA cards.

Quake 3 arena

After it was previously only use DirectX games, we want to now also the OpenGL performance a closer look. This came at the beginning of Quake 3 arena used, which provides the graphics engine made by id Software for some important games at the moment, and probably also for the future. So the benchmark is very good information on the performance of the current and future games, that have the Quake3 engine.

When the normal settings runs Quake 3 under 16-bit color depth. Accordingly the Radeon 7500 is here again slower than the GeForce2 Pro and TI. The poor performance in the 16-bit seems to continue also in OpenGL.

Under the high settings can the Radeon 7500 pre-accession move up in the low resolutions at the Pro and Ti, must be beaten in 1024 x 768 then again nearly.

Again, can present the Radeon 7500 in the lower resolutions, but then again obtained from other cards. As already in the high-quality-settings, Pro, TI, and Radeon 7500 in the high resolutions are available at about the same.

GL excess

GL excess is actually very low hardware requirements and achieved so much high frame rates beyond the 400 frames per second. But is it not necessarily at the expense of the depicted scenes, because there are some pretty interesting effects.

Old picture under 16-bit, the Radeon depends not on against the competition. But this time it looks not much better under 32-bit. The gap is much smaller, but the GeForce2 Pro and TI are still clearly faster than the Radeon 7500.

Vulpine GL mark

The Vulpine mark GL is divided into two scenes. An outdoor scene with very large visibility and an interior scene, which runs through closed corridors and rooms. The graphical appearance of the benchmark, one can argue in my opinion. For me, he sets up new records either graphically or from the implementation, gives off a good overall impression of the delivered performance through its different scenes but.

To the poor performance in 16-bit everyone will have become accustomed by now and so the Vulpine GL mark is no exception. While the Radeon 7500 in 32-bit again once hardly loses power, the GeForce2 give in to clearly Pro and Ti, so that the Radeon 7500 to them, but not past comes again.

Overclocking

Because the chip in the 0, 15µm technology is manufactured and cooled in addition, we expected here with a very good overclocking features. We made our more concerned but to the RAM. 250 MHz (500) are likely to be a problem in the face of 4ns access time, but much more will probably not be possible. In the end, we then maximum reached 350 MHz chip and at least 260MHz in the store. An increase of almost 30% is thus for the chip and the store is still on 13 percent.

We looked more precisely what this has to affect the results, by means of two examples:

Quake 3 arena

Was first tested Quake 3 arena with the higher clock rates:

The Radeon 7500 can very well up to 21 percent the higher stroke more power, implement comes over but at least in the normal quality settings on the GeForce2 Pro and TI.

Because the distance between the competitors at the max quality settings was not so great, the overclocked Radeon 7500 now can overtake the Pro and TI. Also here creates the overclocked Radeon 7500 up to 21 percent more frames than with their default clock.

VillageMark

After Quake 3 arena improved performance under OpenGL has clarified this now will do the VillageMark Direct3D:

In 16-bit, the overclocked Radeon 7500 can pass now to the previously tied the GeForce2 cards and recorded a performance of up to 26 percent. Under 32-bit, the higher clock with up to 21 percent is again very well implemented Performancgewinn.

Worth overclocking in the Radeon 7500 therefore in any case, because especially in the chip a lot more in it. The store you would have to Miss already additional cooling to here more out to tease.

Image quality

Because the image quality of the Radeon 7500 unfortunately but all sometimes very negative struck benchmarks, we have made some comparisons for you that should illustrate the features of the Radeon 7500. This is first of all, that all benchmarks with the highest level of quality in the drivers have been carried out.

There are several points that have a negative stand out:

• a disturbing grain over the entire screen in 16-bit
• in smoke and explosion effects very bad dithering
• slurred textures both under 16 and 32 bit

So that you can get a picture of, what we object to the above list, we have at hand some screenshots for you:

First, we focus the disturbing grain on the screen them here:

In addition to the grain, that extremely negative stands out in particular in low resolutions, the screenshots show the very bad dithering effect under 16-bit. If you do not immediately discovered the grain, should unpack best his Magnifier or manually in the images zoom.

As a second example of the bad dithering we resorted to the lobby scene from the 3DMark2001:

The here offered not the none-plus ultra on image quality, looks, I think everyone at first glance. These two points can represent no less than only on 16 bit. Which we were already at the third point of criticism, who unfortunately both under 16 and 32-bit:

In particular of the House front right you see very nice significantly worse quality of textures. But even with the textures of the figures, we see a difference as well as at the rooftop on the left. There is also the reason for the poor quality of the texture in my opinion: ATI appears here in the drivers just earlier than usual to switch on a mipmap level, so textures, which are actually still very close to the eye of the beholder, is unfortunately already very washy appear.

For those who want to see the images more closely, we here provide the photographs with the grain as bitmaps with WinZip packed and here the pictures from the 3DMark2001 to download.

Conclusion

You may suspend not much on the actual show. Processing is very good, and in particular the dual-display properties ensure in this performance class probably some for large eyes. The delivery is not abundant in particular in the field of software, but can convince through the variety of adapters and cables. Here, it is highly commendable that the customer does not have extra need to buy such expensive cable.

ATI can achieve its ambitious goal to place themselves between the Pro and ultra in Direct3D for 32-bit. But unfortunately, the 16Bit-Performance is very disappointing and in OpenGL, she can confirm the high expectations we had results after the Direct3D, not in all areas.

But certainly, the biggest shortcoming is the image quality under 16-bit. One can accuse this problem not a map, but clearly, ATI’s drivers. Also the wishy-washy textures under 16 and 32 bit of sometimes extremely negatively. Here, there is clearly still need to catch up. Above all, it’s going extremely annoying that you have to take a worse image quality than in the competition in buying under 16-bit and for this is still not even particularly good performance when looking at the 32-bit results. With the current drivers you should operate the Radeon 7500 in my opinion definitely only under 32-bit.

But you should make no falls too negative judgement on the Radeon 7500 from it, since it represents a very good dual-display graphics card at a cost of about DM 340,-in comparison to the competition. Here, the GeForce2 MX400 can no longer compete cards from Nvidia TwinView or Matrox G400-550. In particular, the extensive setting options and the excellent image of TV-Outs can convince on all along the line.

Whether you now accesses to the Radeon 7500 or a GeForce2 Ti, moving both in the same price range, I would make dependent on above all of the operational area. If you want an excellent dual display graphics card, sought in vain at NVIDIA and here is very well serviced with the Radeon 7500. Otherwise I would personally rather resort to a GeForce2 Ti, but this is my persönliches, and here his own image from the results in the benchmarks should be at best.

Anyone who has questions about the ATI Radeon 7500 or dwell on the results and would like to discuss about it, uses the best our forum.

&Lt; div > PowerMagic Radeon 7500 < div > positive properties

• On clock performance of the chip
• Dual display support
• TV-out quality
• Cables and adapters