Introduction
When ATI first introduced the RADEON 8500, it was the best thing that ever happened to the gaming world as users were treated to a much more advanced GPU than the GeForce3. Months passed and the RADEON 8500 held the title for the best gaming GPU for quite a while until NVIDIA decided to up the ante with the GeForce4 Ti 4600. All is not lost, as prices for the new GeForce4 Ti cards are still quite costly even though it has been around the market for 3 months already. So, even until today, users are still attracted to the RADEON 8500 for its excellent gaming performance on top of a much more refined display quality.
Hercules is one of the graphics card manufacturers who switched camps to join ATI in making their own line of display products. The 3D Prophet FDX 8500LE is Hercules' top of the line ATI RADEON offering. Based on the RADEON 8500LE GPU, the GPU is clocked at only 250MHz, which is about 25MHz lower than the full fledge RADEON 8500 GPU. So, if you're looking for a GeForce3 Ti 500 killer, you shouldn't be looking at the 3D Prophet FDX 8500LE. Since it is slower, how does it compare with the GeForce3 Ti 200? Well, read on and you'll be surprised.
The technical specifications of the 3D Prophet FDX 8500LE is shown in the table below:-
Hercules 3D Prophet FDX 8500LE Technical Specifications
| Graphics Engine |
- ATI RADEON 8500LE GPU (core clock at 250MHz)
- ATI TRUFORM technology
- SMARTSHADER technology
- SMOOTHVISION anti-aliasing
- ATI HYPER Z II technology
- memory bandwidth conservation for improved performance
- CHARISMA ENGINE II
- full Transformation, Clipping and Lighting
- PIXEL TAPESTRY II
- Integrated Transformation, Clipping and Lighting
- Twin Cache Architecture
- SuperScalar Rendering
- Single-Pass Multi-texturing
- True Color Rendering
- Specular Highlights
- Perspectively Correct Texture Mapping
- Z-buffering and Double-buffering
- ATI VIDEO IMMERSION II technology
- advanced de-interlacing algorithms for unprecedented video quality
- integrated digital TV decode capability
- programmable gamma for overlay
- Frame Rate Conversion (Temporal Filtering)
- Microsoft DirectX 8.1 optimizations and support
- OpenGL 1.3 optimizations and support
|
| Graphics Memory |
- 64MB DDR SDRAM (4ns Hynix memory - clocked at 238MHz)
|
| RAMDAC |
|
| Connectors |
- 15-pin D-sub VGA connector (supports up to 2048x1536 @ 85Hz)
- 1x DVI-I connector (supports up to 1600x1200)
- 1x mini DIN connector for TV-out (up to 1024x768)
|
| Driver & Software |
- Driver support for Windows 98/98SE/Me/NT 4.0/2000/XP
- CyberLink PowerDVD XP 4.0
- Guillemot product demo CD
- Ghost Recon (full game)
|
| Other Information |
- AGP 1.1 slot required (1.5V)
- 1 PCI-assigned IRQ required
|
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