Although ATIs Radeon 7500 does not feature the new Charisma Engine II, with technology such as Truform, Smartshader and Hyper Z II, it is still a very competent graphics card targeted at the mid-range 3D graphics market. For a mid-range card the performance is quite fast; more or less on par with our reference Hercules GeForce2 GTS 64MB, which took out the Labs Speed Award in our last 3D round-up (September 2000, page 61).

In fact, in the composite score it ranked above the Hercules reference card with an overall result of 1.53. That score is normalised against the slowest card overall, the reference ATI Radeon. Given that the 7500 is an enhanced version of the Radeon architecture, there is a 53% performance increase in its latest incarnation, which will serve well in current gaming environments.

As an example, the Q3A High Quality 1,024 test saw the Radeon 7500 achieve a more than playable 52.4fps; a very respectable result for a budget solution. With dual-display support and features designed for DVD playback such as motion compensation and de-interlacing, the Radeon range as a whole is very versatile. The Bravura 7500 model, however, is more suitably priced for the budget-conscious.