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Gigabyte Maya AP Radeon 8500 Deluxe Review - PAGE 1
Alex Yeung - Friday, August 30th, 2002
Introduction
ATi has been producing GPU's and video cards in-house for as long as I can remember. But not too long ago, probably due to stiff competition from other companies, namely nVidia, ATi has chosen to release their GPU's and contract third party manufacturers to produce ATi powered cards. Gigabyte, after a couple years of producing and selling nVidia based video cards, with marginal success, have opted to discontinue their contribution to the already diversified market of nVidia powered video cards. So, ATi, a distinguished company looking to beef up their Radeon line with third party manufacturers, and Gigabyte, a long running, no less distinguished, corporation, searching for a flagship for their graphics acceleration division, found a perfect partnership with the common goal of capturing the elusive 3D performance crown. Since then, Gigabyte has produced quite a few ATi powered video cards each with increasing capabilities and performance. Today, we'll be looking at the current flagship card, the AP128DG-H otherwise known as the Gigabyte Maya AP Radeon 8500 Deluxe.
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Specifications
Graphics controller
RADEON 8500 graphics processing unit (GPU)
Memory configuration
128MB of double data rate memory(DDR)
Unique Features of MAYA
V-Tuner Tweaker supported, can overclock your GPU and Memory speed.
3D Features
Features ATI's innovative TRUFORM technology
ATI's new SMARTSHADER technology
Supports DirectX 8.1 and OpenGL 1.3 features
SMOOTHVISION anti-aliasing
ATI's HYPER Z II technology conserves memory bandwidth for improved performance
CHARISMA ENGINE II supports full Transformation, Clipping and Lighting (T&L)
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
DVD playback Features
ATI's VIDEO IMMERSION II technology enables integration of industry-leading digital video features, including advanced de-interlacing algorithms for unprecedented video quality and integrated digital TV decode capability
Includes programmable gamma for the overlay and Frame Rate Conversion (Temporal Filtering)
Hardware DVD saves the expense of buying a separate MPEG-2/DVD decoder card and motion compensation allows for DVD decoding with minimum CPU usage
Output
D-Sub , S-Video , DVI-I
Bundle Software
CyberLink PowerDVD XP
Serious Sam (Game CD)
Heavy Metal F.A.K.K.2 (Game CD)
Rune (Game CD)
Motocross Mania (Game CD)
4X4 EVO and Oni (in 1 CD, Lite version)
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