ATI Radeon 8500 Question.

[Mudshark]

Whats the difference between a ATI Radeon 8500 LE and a
ATI Radeon 8500 ?
What does the "LE" mean and which is better?
Thanks.

 

[iss]

the 8500 LE is the "limited" version some of the features of the 8500 are disabled on the LE version. they are disabled by the bios and there are bios's flashes that can renable those features if your brave enough to risk trashing your card if the bios flash goes bad.

 

[Mudshark]

Thanks ISS,
I was wondering why they cost less....
I have noticed a few good deals on the 9000 range cards.
I might spring for one.

 

[Vehementi]

Originally posted by iss
the 8500 LE is the "limited" version some of the features of the 8500 are disabled on the LE version. they are disabled by the bios and there are bios's flashes that can renable those features if your brave enough to risk trashing your card if the bios flash goes bad.

I'm thinking of doing that with my 8500LE. Might as well

 

[vegasgmc]

Ive read several reviews on the 8500LE and they all said that all you have to do is overclock it a little and you'll have the full 8500. Newegg.com has the 8500LE 128MB for $99 and it should have about the same performance as the G4 4200 if you use the new Catalyst drivers.

 

[iss]

there has been strong enough demand for the 8500 card that ATI is allowing its partners to rerelase the card under the Radeon 9100 label. newEgg has them they are marketed under the sapphire brand. and even though it is a previous generation chipset it is still a more powerful card than the 9000 hence the designation 9100. I think it is about 99.00.

 

[Vehementi]

Originally posted by Vehementi
I'm thinking of doing that with my 8500LE. Might as well

Which I did soon after posting. If it didn't work, I wouldn't be writing this post

Gigabyte manufactures 3 versions of the 8500, the 64MB 8500LE (mine), the 64MB 8500 Pro (mine now! ) and the 128MB 8500 Pro. I just took the BIOS from the 64MB 8500 Pro and flashed my 8500LE's...works flawlessly.

The only drawback is the high-risk flashing and the somewhat dropped overclocking potential. Default clocks before were 250/250, now they're 275/275. Runs stable as a mountain.

 

[iss]

Cool :grinthumb

now if I could just flash my 8500 to a 9700

 

[Vehementi]

Originally posted by iss
Cool :grinthumb

now if I could just flash my 8500 to a 9700

:haha: lol

 

[Mudshark]

Okay, So I should buy a 8500LE 128Mb and do the Pro BIOS
flash.... this should give me the best bang fo my buck right?

 

[Vehementi]

Originally posted by Mudshark
Okay, So I should buy a 8500LE 128Mb and do the Pro BIOS
flash.... this should give me the best bang fo my buck right?

Well yeah...

What's the manufacturer of your card? Your best bet is to get the BIOS of the 128MB 8500 Pro from them. Decreases the chances of completely wrecking your card without chance of a warranty return.

 

[Mudshark]

It'll be a:
ATI OEM RADEON 8500 LE 128MB DDR DVI/CRT/TV
Manufactured by Sapphire...........
or maybe I should just get the Sapphire ATI RADEON 9000 Atlantis PRO 128MB DDR DVI/TV-out, BULK - it's only a few bucks more.

 

[iss]

You should seriously consider spending about 60.00 more for the Radeon 9500 pr 128MB it is not that much more and is a far more powerful card than either the 9000 pro or the 8500.

 

[vegasgmc]

Who sells the Gigabyte cards?

 

[palmboy5]

other than pricewatch.com, www.mwave.com has the lowest prices for computer products

they have gigabyte cards

 

[Vehementi]

I got mine from newegg, vegasgmc. It was pretty cheap too, like ~$100 in August.

 

[young&wild]

Originally posted by Mudshark
It'll be a:
ATI OEM RADEON 8500 LE 128MB DDR DVI/CRT/TV
Manufactured by Sapphire...........
or maybe I should just get the Sapphire ATI RADEON 9000 Atlantis PRO 128MB DDR DVI/TV-out, BULK - it's only a few bucks more.

I think you better off with Gigabyte or Hercules versions of ATI cards have more cooling...which is better for some overclocking and if you in the flashing thing like what Veh did!

 

[Vehementi]

Yeah y&w, my Gigabyte card came with a huge custom Thermaltake heatsink; which is overkill considering it's just was an 8500LE. The fan was too small and noisy so I ripped it out and slapped a 70mm on it, and it's perfectly quiet

My video card still runs a little hot thought, like 40C for the core and 38C for the memory

Sure beats the wimpy little ATi HSF though...

 

[Vehementi]

Although it cannot beat the FX Flow, NVIDIA's cooling solution for the Geforce FX:

NVIDIA's FX Flow cooling technology that looks to be a combination of ABIT's OTES and eVGA's ACS2 technology, although NVIDIA did not license it from either of the aforementioned companies.

NVIDIA's FX Flow technology supports a wide range of speed levels to run the fan at; at its loudest the fan is no louder than a noisy Ti 4600.

Heh, nice. The lower speed version, probably the "MX", will only take up one expansion slot.

 

[Maximus]

Holy shipdip, thats a big video card, reminds me of the old days of 3dfx's Voodoo5, that card WAS huge. Anyway you should shell out the extra 5 bucks for the 9000. It could get a little performance boost over the 8500LE, maybe like 5-7fps in games. Just my 2 cents worth.

 

[Mudshark]

Okay.... so I whimped out and got a Leadtek Ti4200 128..sorry.
Thanks for all the input though.
Maybe next time it will be a ATI?

 

[Vehementi]

Bad choice.

Should have gotten a 9500 Pro.

 

[Mudshark]

Originally posted by Vehementi
Bad choice.

You got any valid reason for that opinion, Like Q3 or U2 frame
rates or some other realworld stats?
This is not a loaded question... I just cant find any.
It's always an overclocked something against some other
"faster" whatsit so the figures don't end up meaning a whole
lot.
I ended up using the ABIT version of this card in my rig.... and
figured it was pretty good for the money.

 

[Th3M1ghtyD8]

Originally posted by Maximus
Anyway you should shell out the extra 5 bucks for the 9000. It could get a little performance boost over the 8500LE, maybe like 5-7fps in games. Just my 2 cents worth.

The 9000 is just a re-designed cost reduced 8500 core, and so runs slightly slower than a real 8500, but probably the same speed as an 8500LE.

 

[PreservedSwine]

Originally posted by iss
the 8500 LE is the "limited" version some of the features of the 8500 are disabled on the LE version. they are disabled by the bios and there are bios's flashes that can renable those features if your brave enough to risk trashing your card if the bios flash goes bad.

Actully, it's not missing anything, just lower clocks than a "retail" R8500.