Kyle of HardOCP has reviewed Radeon 8500 and from the quote below you can pretty much gather that Kyle was a bit disappointed with it...:
"We are surprised that ATi launched this product at this time. It is obvious that all the features are not operating properly and testing was lackluster at best. We found compatibility problems with the card after only spending ten minutes with it after getting the drivers installed. We would think that if we were putting out a VidCard that we would be embarrassed by such events. You might have seen this card referred to by other hardware sites as having potential. We know that when we buy a piece of hardware, potential is absolutely not what we are looking for. We want to open the box and get our money"s worth and ATi has not done that with the Radeon 8500 in its current state.
If you are looking to buy a DX8 VidCard and getting the most bang for your buck, it is going to be very hard to turn you guys away from purchasing a GeForce3 Ti200 based card as they are looking very attractive."
Check out the full review over @ HardOCP.com