8500 is equal to the 9100, 9200 is even better whereas 9000 is slower from both so i find it hard to beleive that it has the R300 chip.
edit:
"We will start with RADEON 9000 Pro and RADEON 9000 chips:
Both chips are based on the sane RV250 graphics core and differ only by the working frequency. RV250 is a slightly modified R200 core (used in RADEON 8500/LE)"
