In terms of hardware specs, the ATI RADEON 8500 ups the ante from the 30 million transistors in the current-generation RADEONs to 60 Million, allowing 12GB/sec peak memory bandwidth and 1 Billion pixels/second. The card comes stocked 64MB of 275/550MHz DDR memory, clocked at and a 250MHz core and will make use of 4 pixel pipelines and 6 texture units (in DX 8.1) to pump out better looking graphics than once thought possible on a desktop. And as far as connections go, you'll find the VGA, DVI, and TV output connectors we've grown accustomed to in current-generation cards; but don't expect a VIVO version any time soon.

What ATI is touting with the 8500's release, however, is not so much the hardware improvements over current RADEON lines, but the new technologies that will allow them to make full use of that hardware. These are TRUFORM, SMARTSHADER, and SMOOTHVISION, along with second-generation updates of such existing technologies as the CHARISMA ENGINE II, PIXEL TAPESTRY II, HYPERZ II, VIDEO IMMERSION II, and HYDRAVISION.

Unfortunately, though, the best of the 8500's features won't kick in without Windows XP's DirectX 8.1; so while we've had a review sample on hand and have gotten to see how it performs in games, we've yet to really see it shine. Just the same, let's go into some of these features in greater detail.

TRUFORM is a technology that helps make graphics look more photo-realistic by curving the surfaces. The TRUFORM engine is a hardware implementation of N-Patches in DirectX or PN Triangles in OpenGL, and it increases detail and improves lighting and silhouettes on graphic representations in games and programs. The triangles themselves become smooth instead of being flat blocks in an overall image that it supposed to just look smooth. And all this can be done with available data already being coded for games.

This will mean that developers won't need to do anything special in creating their games, as the additional of a single line of code (according to ATI) will allow the TRUFORM engine to kick in and smooth out images... and will also, we were told, mean patches to some existing games that will greatly improve the graphics for RADEON 8500 users. And for us, the consumers, it will mean that we'll see more detailed and more realistic looking images without the need for more bloated code, a godsend for online gamers, or even those of us who already shudder at 50-100MB patches for our games.

SMARTSHADER is another new technology that is waiting on DirectX 8.1 to kick in. This makes use of Verty Shaders to enable custom lighting, skinning, and blending, and Pixel Shaders to allow for more accurate and realistic modeling of materials and material properties (how skin looks, how water ripples, etc.). This will mean more customized and better-looking bumpmapping. And with the RADEON 8500's support of multiple bump maps, this will mean game graphics that come closer than ever to tricking the eye.

And the third of ATI's new technologies being introduced in the RADEON 8500 is their newest anti-aliasing technology. What makes SMOOTHVISION different is that it allows the developers to program their own pixel sampling patterns, allowing them to better control how they make use of anti-aliasing, and so create better looking images and AA performance. While there is still a performance hit from anti-aliasing, according to ATI, SMOOTHVISION represents the next step forward in minimizing how great a hit it causes and improving how good it looks.