ATI Radeon LE from Newegg is Now at $77.00 Shipped - Amazing!

[clutz123]

Since this is the OEM version, is there any other place that one can get the "ATI Multimedia Center", which includes a DVD player that uses the card?

Thanks

 

[ConnCarl]

Mine came with a genuine ATI "International" Installation CD, including drivers for most of their 3D products, a DVD player, ATI's "GART" AGP driver, and Multimedia Center software.

A great deal compared to buying a card and DVD software (like Win DVD) separately. And the player works great with the Geek's $49 8X DVD I found in Hot Deals.

In the interest of fairness though, I must add that even with the newest driver available (4.13.7089) it still responds negatively to tweaking. At 166 or 190 mhz, it consistently posts lower numbers in Final Reality and 3D Mark than it did fresh out of the box with the shipping driver at 144 mhz.

I've only seen one other post regarding a user whose LE didn't seem to respond to tweaks, so I suppose the odds are in your favor.

 

[CashFlow]

what does "Hyper Z" mean?

 

[clutz123]

sweet! I just bought the compgeeks dvd-rom drive too? was considering the toshiba onvia.com one. Good thing i didn't buy powerdvd right away. Thanks ConnCarl!

 

[Wolfgang]

Robbin, I kept the other machine as is as a secondary computer.

You might be able to use SoftFSB (search for it) to up the speed a bit, though. SoftFSB is free software that lets you adjust the system bus speed on many motherboards, bringing the CPU along for the ride.

 

[Wolfgang]

Fishmonger,

Running Windows 2000 (are you W98 or ME?), and overclocking to 193/193 (I put heatsinks on the RAM, too), I get a 3DMark2001 of only 2024. :^<

I think there are still some software issues to be resolved, but I'm not yet sure what they are.

I'm also not getting the Q3A performance that others (such as the author of the X-bit review) got.

Nevertheless: very pleased. Will be even more pleased when I get up to full speed, though. :^>

 

[ctk9090]

Folks, is it worth considering adding a fan to the LE to keep the GP cool while OCing, or is this unnecessary?

If worthwhile, can you just add a fan to the stock heat sink, or is it necessary to get a new HSF unit for the GP?

Any suggestions on quiet fans/HSF's for this? Good experience with quiet cardcoolers also welcome ...

 

[AtriumBruin]

in UT, on a celeron 366@550, my radeon LE is worse than my V3 2000

i hope my new PIII 700e@850 will help

 

[Fishmonger]

I'm running Windows 98 SE, so that could make a difference in scores becuase of different drivers. I've heard bad things about ATI's driver support for Win2000, I don't know much about that though since I'm still using 98.

I'm no expert in overclocking and cooling, but I do know by the virtue of the simple &quot;touch test&quot; that the Radeon LE runs cooler than my old Voodoo3. i just run a graphic-intensive game like setting Quake III to run in a loop and touch the card with my fingertips. The Voodoo3 was hot to the touch...burns after only a few seconds. The Radeon LE is only slightly warm. Judging from that unscientific experiment, I would say that putting a fan on the stock heatsink would be sufficient. I know most people just find an old 486/Cyrix cooler and stick it on there. The Radeon LE has oversized heatsink (bigger than retail radeon) so attaching a fan should be no problem. I believe people are recommending 50mm fans, but I would measure before buying just to be sure.

Hope this helps.

 

[AtriumBruin]

got one!

here're the specs
i posted in the video cards section as well

on a celeron 366@550

Running at: 148/148
----------------------
3dMark2000
only 2920 marks!!!

i hacked the registry and updated to ATI's newest drivers.

CPU limited? or is that so bad that i'm doing something wrong?

hmm, this is on 1024x768 16bit color, 16 bit z buffer, triple frame buffer, d3d hardware T&amp;L

I later tried 32 bit color, 32 bit buffer, triple frame buffer
got 2820 marks

how sad!

Running at 183/183
-------------------

16 bit color, 16 bit z buffer, triple frame buffer, scored 3098
32 bit color, 32 bit buffer, triple frame buffer, i got a score of 2962


edit:

i tried unhacking it back so that disable z is 1, enableFastSwap is 0, and the hierarchal Z is also 0. i get the same scores... i believe i'm doing something wrong, or my processor is just crappy.

do i need to restart for the changes in the registry to take affect?

 

[iluvdeal]

Those scores look about normal for your cpu and card. What were you expecting? Load your results into madonion.com and then publish them so you can do the search and compare feature, you can see how you rank with others.

 

[AtriumBruin]

sigh, i guess i was expecting my UT to run better, and it doesn't
my v3 was definitely better. i'll wait til my p3 700e comes in..

thanks for the advice though!

 

[NT4Mike]

Have had my LE in for a week or 2 and think I have finally got it performing more the way that I want. It has taken quite a bit to get it there, but not impossible.

3dmark2000 default bench: 5211
3dmark2001 default bench: 3316

W2k w/ SP1
DX8a w/ d3dim700.dll version 5.1.2256.140
3114 Drivers
Raid-On Tweaker v4.1 by Humus
PIII700e@933
Tyan S1833DL Tiger 100 OEM
256MB PC133 Kingston Value Ram CL3
Radeon LE @ 200/200 (586 fan attached)
Quantum Fireball LM 30GB
Intel Pro 100B NIC
SBlive

To me this card is almost better than the retail in that it has a better heatsink to attach a fan. My buddy with a Retail can't get his to go over 183 because he doesn't get the cooling out of the retail HS and fan. I just screwed on a little 586 fan and boom 200 here I come.

Now I just need to do a reload of my whole system to get things clean from all the tweaking and other stuff. Then I can see if I can push it a bit further. I will also be installing a second PIII700@933 next week so I am curious to see if that will boost things a little bit.

Glad I bought this card.

-Mike

 

[Wolfgang]

BTW, for those interested: the TV-out on this card is GREAT. No color-banding or splotching at all. Wonderful.

Now if only if the newer drivers recognized my monitor (which is required to get TV-out apparently -- I only had it briefly :^< -- though ATI is aware of a somewhat widespread problem and is working on it), and if only I were getting more than 2/3 of the performance others are reporting here, 3dMark2001-wise.....

Still pleased with the card. :^>

 

[Wolfgang]

AtriumBruin,

Unreal is a very CPU-intensive game. While Quake relies more on the GPU (while, in turn, GPU drivers may be increasing their reliance on the CPU to eek out extra performance), for Unreal, the key to frame rate is the CPU.

Also, any 3dfx card will get an extra performance boost in Unreal and any other Glide game, since Glide is native to the 3dfx chips.

But all things considered, the LE still blows away the Voodoo3 3000. I still can't get over the HQ TV-out -- I was simply resigned to 12-bit color depth on every card in the world, and than BAM! Real-color TV out! :^>

Wolfgang

 

[alluu]

Wolfgang,

I am still using my Voodoo 3000 but after reading all the comments and especially yours on the tv-out, I think I am going to make the jump. Can any others comment on the quality of the tv-out (and in comparison to the voodoo)?

 

[iluvdeal]

How is the tv out with regards to playing back DVD movies?

 

[AtriumBruin]

hmm, ok i see. but how about 3dMark2000? my scores are far lower than everyone elses. of course, i am running on a celeron 366@550...
hey NT4Mike, what's Raid-On Tweaker? is that an altervative to powerstrip?

 

[Fishmonger]

Atrium,

Are you using the latest beta drivers? You can get them at rage3d.com. Try the newest drivers if the old drivers aren't giving you the scores you're looking for. If you're already using the newest drivers, then go back and use the old drivers. Some people get higher scores with old drivers.

If you're using the beta drivers, make sure you have DirectX 8.0a since the beta drivers are optimized for the new DirectX extensions.

Finally, Raid-on Tweaker is an alternative to Powerstrip. In my opinion it is better than PowerStrip for hacking/tweaking purposes because it's easier to use. It comes with default settings that you can load already, so for people like me who doesn't know what half the stuff means, just load the default profiles for different games/benchmarks and you're ready to go. Raid-on Tweaker also lets you overclock with ease.

Another program that does pretty much the same thing is r3dtweak, developed by the folks at Rage3d.com themselves. This one is neat in that you can control the overclock/tweaking settings directly from the display control panel. It is written so the tweaking options are embedded as a tab in the advanced options of the display properties.

Powestrip is still handy for other purposes, however, such as adjusting monitor/video card refresh rates and such. Another thing I really like about Powerstrip is the ability to save your desktop icon arrangements so when they mess up you can restore it.

Anyway, all that said, you can find all of the drivers and utilities mentioned above at Rage3d

 

[AtriumBruin]

thanks fishmonger. some of you might also find it worthwhile to go there. They have forums there, and one whole TOPIC is dedicated to Radeon overclocking. That's right, not a THREAD, but a whole forum TOPIC!! so go check it out! i'm learning new things already.

Apparently the 7089 drivers have a special tweak in them to raise your 3dmark scores. read about it at their rage3d forums.

 

[A5]

I just ordered 2 of them, one for me and one for my bro

 

[XzeroR3]

nm i read.

ordered LE to be overclocked and hacked.

 

[Wolfgang]

One warning:

ATI's reputation for poor drivers seems well-earned. They do really stink sometimes. I and others have been trying to get the TV-out to work as advertised -- it just won't do it for me under W2K.

(There's a thread on Rage3d pointing out a lousy but effective workaround, but it requires rebooting every time one wants to switch modes.)

The cards are great, but the drivers are, for MANY (but not ALL), a noticeably weak link.

 

[bigballer]

While, I don't doubt that ATI has poor driver support, I have had no problems getting TV-out to work on my LE. I'm using the 3102 drivers (3114 wouldn't load) and It's working fine in win2k. I would try these drivers if you already haven't. Otherwise, your problem may lie someplace else.

 

[Wolfgang]

That's good to hear -- I was wondering how broad the problem was. I'm a little suspicious of some left-over Voodoo3 stuff in my registry, but I literally cannot delete it -- reports an error on every attempt.

But at least now I know that this isn't happening to everyone with a TV-out Radeon LE, and that may provide further guidance -- thanks.

(I'm not willing to do what I see some folks do: &quot;Finally got it to work -- reformatted, clean install of Windows, now it plays real smooth!&quot;, etc. etc. Yikes.)

BTW, I'm using 3102 now, as I did in my first attempt -- no ATI tabs in advanced display settings, no monitor properties, just not working right, though working somewhat.

No more tech stuff here, since this is a Hot Deal forum -- for others wondering about tech issues, see ATI's web site and the rage3d.com discussion areas linked to above.