Keep Radeon 8500LELE ?

[alexandersdad]

Just purchased a new system from Cyberpower. One of my choices was 'Radeon 8500'. This item carried a $25 premium over a GF3 Ti200. At that price I expected an 8500LE, and the choice seemed a no-brainer over the Ti200. Now that I get the system I see the part number has the ever-popular '1500' which indicates a 230Mhz core clock, also known as the 8500LELE. Of course, at the time I placed the order, no one knew about the LELE.

Do I make a stink? They did not indicate OEM or retail in the description (they did [oem] for the audigy however), so what exactly smells?
do I swap out for the Ti200? and possibly pay shipping?

I'm not sure I feel like messing around with trying to OC

I'm not a power gamer. strickly casual. I wanted good 2d performance

Oh yeah. I haven't actually confirmed the clock speed with one of those utilities yet. I'm just going by the P/N

Edit:
other components ? Athlon XP 1600+ on Shuttle AK31, 512mb DDR, IBM 60gb, SB Audigy

 

[millsy]

I am using 8500LE but got mine from UK and arrived clocked at 250Mhz core clock as default. Maybe I was lucky.
Anyway, using Powerstrip I can run happily at 275Mhz clock and memory.

Even if it is clocked at 230Mhz clock, it will be better than the GF3 Ti200.

 

[Killrose]

peple are using the "pencil trick" on their LE/OEM Radeon 8500's to get them to run at Retail+ speeds. Go over to the Rage3d forums and check it out.

 

[Kingofcomputer]

forgive them, most resellers just use the product description from their wholeseller or distributor, they don't know what they're selling.

newegg is an exception, their 8500 oem has "230/230" now in the product description.

 

[Spike]

I am using a Radeon 8500 from newegg and it was clocked at 230/460 when I got it. Using powerstrip, I have it at 250/500 and it runs stable. I think that it is a keeper as it games exceptionally. In 3dmark2001 I get 7500 under Win XP at 250/500, and 7150 under XP at 230/460. Under win98 I get 7800 at 250/500. I know that this benchmark is still just that and not a "real-world" application, but it still does a good job of measuring preformance. If you want to send it back, then thats cool. But I would reccomend keeping it as it is still a good card (better with every new release of drivers) and it games so very nicely.

 

[aa_koch]

I only read about this today, and don't have a Radeon 8500 (any flavor) myself so I don't know if it's any good or not, but maybe this program can be of some use to you? I guess it's at least worth checking out...

<edit>

I forgot to add: The link to the software on that page is removed, but at the bottom there's a link to a mirror page that still has it.

</edit>

 

[DJBOB]

alexandersdad I myself just purchased a LE which I thought would be OEM. But the company I ordered from just throws random ones into the box so they can't tell which one I'll get even if I rma mine. But I get my LE to 250/500 rock solid & stable. I've managed to get the memory to 260 while the core was 250. Strange huh I thought they had to match. Anyway it beats a Ti 200 w/out OCing it, but since this board is the SAME as the OEM or retail depending on voltage it should be able to hit atlease 250/500 or 275/550 w/out any extra cooling if you ever OC. Hope that helps.

Bob

 

[alexandersdad]

Thanks everyone. I'll just keep the card.