Radeon 8500 LE $179 @ Newegg

[skeister]

Newegg has had a good deel on the Radeon 8500 LE OEM for some time. The only difference b/w this and the retail card is no DVI to VGA adaptor for dual monitor support, no fancy box, and slightly lower clock speeds (230/230 mhz or 250/250 mhz instead of the retail 275/275 mhz).

Linkified

Also the OEM bios can be flashed to the retail bios with the card easily overclocked. So essentially, you're getting a retail card.
Radeon 8500 Flash Page

The price is unbeatable!

 

[LuNoTiCK]

Not all radeon 8500 LE's can run at the retail speed, so if you flash it, you will be taking a risk.

 

[dew042]

<< Not all radeon 8500 LE's can run at the retail speed, so if you flash it, you will be taking a risk. >>



yeah. nobody takes risks for deals around here, huh?

worth a look eitherway.

dew.

 

[earthdick]

From the information I've gathered, the 230/230 LE can't be flashed to the retail bios. I think it's a matter of voltage supplied to the gpu. The 250/250 LE's can be flashed to the retail bios only if they have 3.6ns chips. Many of the LE's at 250/250 have 4.0ns chips so they can't be flashed to the retail bios either.

 

[mr_cheesy]

actually I just picked one up and it was clocked at 230/230. it had 3.6ns ram, and flashed like a champ to full retail. I would recommend using powerstrip to test the speed at 275 to see if you card can handle it. and actually with the popular flash program you can at least try out 250/250.
if you need more volts there is a pencil trick as well, but my card didn't need it. these things are brutes, i'm impressed with the speed.

 

[earthdick]

mr_cheesy; What was the brand name on your card, or was it a "white box"? I'm guessing that the trick is getting a card with the 3.6ns ram chips. The folks over at Rage3D were positive that the 230/230 can't be flashed.

 

[mr_cheesy]

it was a whitebox, the actual sticker is on the fan is an ati sticker, so it looks as if it may actually be manufactured by them, and just clocked lower. the only thing I would question is if their stock comes from the same source or if it may be mismatched vendors. I'm actually probably gong to pick one up for another box soon as well, I'll give it another shot.

 

[bluemax]

Even at 250/250 it's still darn fast. Newegg should sell to Canada.