They tested the several gfx card in one system, if you tested, for example a gf4, in YOUR sytem, by comparsion "maybe" the 8500 would perform just as poorly. In the same manner,"maybe" a gf4 in your system would perform a lot better then the results showed in the tests where you seem to find the 8500 is "slow". Posting this info is not at all relevant and pointless if you do not test and benchamrk another card in your system to have a term of comparsion, no two systems are alike.

This is just to show that a higher clocked processor SHOULD deliver a better result with the Radeon 8500. If a 2000+ is = 1800+ what's the purpose of it then?

Well im sure you know there is a wide diffrence in 3dmark2k1 based on system configs. I have the same Geforce2 card in 2 of the systems on Lan, same drivers on both(2720), but one is 200mhz slower than the other (1.2ghz and 1.4ghz athlon) They 1.2ghz gets around 150-160points higher than the 1.4ghz in 3dmark2k1. The diffrence is little, but still its a diffrence. One has 128ram, the other has 512. Diff mobos, dif HD. But same vid cards.

I know what you mean. I have a XP 1900+ system and my benchmarks are just below 8900 (8880). I have another system with the 1800+ and I know that one ran just about 8600. So, it beats me why a 2000+ would run that slow. But, for comparison purposes, if the system is identical and just has different video cards, then it really doesn't matter. I thought about buying a GF4, but then I remembered that the R300 should whip its ass......so I'll wait!

Smart!! So.. when the R300 is out..word of the R300 ass whipper, the Gf5 will be out, wait some more, then GF5 out is but it's ass whipper the R500 will be out soon..wait some more... Resuming, you will NEVER have the top notch card for more then 10 seconds!

and wait even longer to get "working" drivers to go with that r300....

ati pulled some driver crap and optimized for 3dmark2001 i think...i read an article over at guru3d yesterday that showed its performance behing the ti200 at times and always behing the ti500 then the 3dmark2001 scores it takes..lol....but all in all after owning a couple of ati cards and having to deal with the drivers i am staying with nvidia.....especially with the easy uninstall using det destoyer...try to get rid of ati drivers ...they are like creative drivers requiring a format to rid windows completely of them

Faster DDR could mean 200 3dmark points, better MOBO could mean 100 points in 3dmark, different drivers could mean 200 points, tweaked drivers could mean 200 points. so here ya go.

alot of these tests seem rather pointless as its all about peak performance and not real gaming performance. I tested a Creative Geforce 3 Ti200 o/ced at 240/500 and a Radeon 8500 with UT and RTCW. the one noticable difference between them was when they were put under load. For example: I used a map for UT called DM-Crashtime - this is an evil map as its a real fps killer. With the Radeon 8500 I got an average fps of just over 45 the Geforce 3 card could only just manage to stay above 30. (With normal UT maps like Deck16 fps is typically around 130). (UT 1024 x 768 32bit OpenGL) The same applies to RTCW - using Trenchtoast map standing out in the open the 8500 would sit about 48fps whereas the Geforce was about 32fps. I did further tests running Tribes 2 with similar results. What this demonstrates to me is that although the Geforce card card starts off at a similar fps to the 8500 in benchmarks, when there's alot of work to do the Geforce will drop much more framerates. Personally I'd much prefer a card that does 50 - 120fps than a card that does 20 - 200fps and that means the Radeon 8500 still wins. I read alot of reviews yesterday regarding the Geforce 4600 - the amazing new Accuview etc etc but not once did any review mention that the only card that offers a REAL visual enhancement is still the Radeon with its Truform. That feature transforms skin models and faces in the games I play (RTCW, Q3a ,UT, Myth3, Sam 2nd ) and at an almost 0 fps cost from what I've seen so far. I've had to give the Radeon back to its owner and I sold my Geforce card for what I paid for it so I'm now looking for a good replacement - So far this still looks like the 8500 with 128mb.

Don't forget that Anandtech also say that these tests were run using a new driver which fixed an earlier fog problem. This definitely reduced the Radeon's relative performance on the Unreal tests and may also hace reduced these scores