ATI has an 'unofficial' driver for 8500 and 8500LE.  I haven't used the 
drivers myself so I can't speak on behalf of their performance (namely 
against NVidia).

http://www.ati.com/support/products/pc/radeon8500/linux/radeon8500linuxdrivers.html


DARREN BROWN wrote:

> Mark,
>  
> I was talking to the guys at PC Club on Friday.  One of the gentlemen 
> told me the ATI 8500, which was on display, will most likely not work 
> correctly.  He stated the ATI 8500 uses mostly software to drive the 
> graphics of the card.
>  
> I do not know how much of this is true, because I have not read any 
> info about the ATI 8500.  I do know the guys at PC Club are pretty 
> much on top of the computer hardware thing, so I would say the ATI 
> 8500 would not appear on the HCL until someone writes software to run 
> under Linux.
>  
> I would contact ATI about this and see what they say.
>  
>  
> Regards,
> Darren
>  
>
>     ----- Original Message -----
>     *From:* Mark Berkwitt
>     *Sent:* Tuesday, October 15, 2002 8:08 PM
>     *To:* PLUG
>     *Subject:* Is ATI's RADEON 8500 LE on Redhat's compatibility list?
>      
>     I've been trying to see RH's HCL but the page doesn't appear.
>     Would anyone know if this video card is on their list?
>
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