I loaded up HL2 yesterday for the first time to test my system and see how well it would run, I was insanely suprised to findout that my 8500 plays the game, not only does it play it but i rarely see any lag and of course im not trying to play it on ultra high and i havent turned on any FPS displays but Im not noticing any real slow down, outside of one scene sofar and it has tons and tons of fire.
Ive got the ATi 8500 128MB card, its a second generation of the 8500 and its not a le :D
Still goes to show you a 3 year old card is still awsome :D
(after i did some reading i found out that this card best most of the Ti 4X00 line as well)