Maxey, most people had a very strong loyalty to 3DFX, until the TNT2U came along...and even then there were tonnes of people who would ignore numbers/specs and insist that V3's were better anyway.
Brand loyalty is pointless....Radeon 8500's are better in theory and in practice, the drivers are very immature but when they're not, it will be undisputable most likely, I think it's funny that some people go "No way! NVIDIA OWNS EVERYONE!" Nvidia is a really good company, but ATI has played catch up and people need to recognize that without having these preconcieved notions.