Radeon8500LE@ 250/275 3.3ns ram for 99$! (CRT+DVI only!)

[helpme]

Mine shipped today, and I guess I am only about 25 miles from their wharehouse... so I should have it tommorow and see what kinda ram is on there.

 

[Morph]

So you can do dual display with crt/crt or crt/dvi, but not with crt/TV right? Does anyone know if the GF4 cards allow dual display with crt and TV?

 

[uwannawhat]

I was leaning towards MSI's TI4400 till I read this...if you recently upgraded to a GeForce3 or Radeon 8500, there isn't a huge jump up from that to the Ti 4400. .

Looks like a great deal, I'm in~!

Thanks Vostok you saved me over $100.

 

[RedShirt]

Originally posted by: Morph
So you can do dual display with crt/crt or crt/dvi, but not with crt/TV right? Does anyone know if the GF4 cards allow dual display with crt and TV?

I have done dual display with a CRT and TV with my 7500 with HydraVision... I would think the 8500 would be the same way (I have a 8500 also, but have not tested hydravision out on it yet).

 

[Morph]

Well, what bothers me is what NewEgg says in the description for this card:

"ATI RADEON 8500LE 64MB DDR CRT/DVI/TV ,Dual Monitor support DVI+CRT only, BULK"

While in the next one down that sells for $112 it says:

"ATI RADEON 8500 LE 64MB DDR - /White Box ... Dual monitor and Video output support"

I'm ready to order the $99 Radeon 8500LE but I want to make sure it doesn't have some sort of limitation on dual display with the tv-out. I want to be able to watch DIVX movies on the TV while working on the CRT at the same time.

Also, i don't have S-video on my TV... will I be able to get a S-video to composite adapter for using the tv-out?

 

[PHiuR]

bump same question as the one above me

 

[Hawk]

yes, you can get an adapter for S-video to RCA.

And you should be able to do TV and monitor, it has to do with drivers and not these "weird" cards Newegg sells.

 

[RedShirt]

Originally posted by: Morph
Well, what bothers me is what NewEgg says in the description for this card:

"ATI RADEON 8500LE 64MB DDR CRT/DVI/TV ,Dual Monitor support DVI+CRT only, BULK"

While in the next one down that sells for $112 it says:

"ATI RADEON 8500 LE 64MB DDR - /White Box ... Dual monitor and Video output support"

I'm ready to order the $99 Radeon 8500LE but I want to make sure it doesn't have some sort of limitation on dual display with the tv-out. I want to be able to watch DIVX movies on the TV while working on the CRT at the same time.

Also, i don't have S-video on my TV... will I be able to get a S-video to composite adapter for using the tv-out?

I do not know... I do not own this card... That does look a little strange... Maybe you can't.

As for the adaptor, yes you can, but they can be expensive buying them by themselves (its better when they include it with the card).

 

[Morph]

Ok, looking closer at the pictures of these 2 cards from the NewEgg site, I see a chip that is missing on the $99 card. Look at the picture of the $112 card here. See the small square chip to the left of the HS/fan? Now look at the picture of $99 card here. That chip is not present on this card. So now the question is, what is that chip?

 

[goog40]

I just got the "other" one(the one that's selling for$112), the chip says ADV7123, search produced this http://products.analog.com/products/genericInfo.asp?product=ADV7123

 

[SirMack]

Sounds like a good deal!

 

[idfubar]

To confirm: I ordered the card, it came with 3.3ns ram, S-video cable, and driver CD. I ordered the adapter (see the first page of this thread) for dual-CRT, but CRT+TV should be no problem...

 

[Morph]

Originally posted by: SunshineDaydream
To confirm: I ordered the card, it came with 3.3ns ram, S-video cable, and driver CD. I ordered the adapter (see the first page of this thread) for dual-CRT, but CRT+TV should be no problem...

Could you please try it and let us know? You can't just assume that it will work. There is a DAC chip missing on your card that makes it physically different from other 8500LE's and regular 8500's.

 

[Dantzig]

Just got a 250/275 card with 3.3ns memory

 

[sleefer]

I believe that the $99 will support CRT and DVI only, the $112 will do either CRT+CRT or CRT+DVI. That's where that DAC chip missing comes in. "Dual Monitor support DVI+CRT only" for $99. "Dual monitor and Video output support" should be CRT+CRT also if needed for the $112 version. Can anyone confirm that the $112 model is also 3.3ns?

 

[Morph]

I have a theory that the card you guys are getting only has a single DAC rather than dual DACs like most 8500 Radeons. If this is the case, then you will not be able to do dual with CRT+CRT or CRT+TV, since CRT and TV-out both require digital-to-analog conversion. You will only be able to run dual display with CRT+DVI, and you'll notice this is exactly what's stated in the card's description at NewEgg. i would love for one of you guys with the card to prove me wrong, but until then I'll be holding off on my purchase because I need CRT+TV dual display.

EDIT: hehe Sleefer, you beat me to it

 

[kennethfine]

I'm afraid you guys may be right about the whole DVI issue. I bought one of the Newegg Radeons with the intent to set up dual video on my home machine. I have a dual-monitor Radeon VE at work, so the thought of having dually action on my gaming machine struck me as pretty cool.

So I order the 8500 and a DVI -->VGA adapter. The thing arrives yesterday. When I tried to plug in the adapter, it wouldn't fit. Looking at the adapter, there's a bunch of pins, a long thin bar, and two sets of pins above and below that bar.

The 8500 didn't have any spaces for those pins, so they wouldn't mesh.

"Damn Newegg sent me the wrong kind of adapter," says I. I go to work and take the DVI --> VGA adapter I have hooked up to my Radeon VE. Guess what? Same story.

At this point I decided to get "creative", and I removed the "extraneous" pins from the adapter that Newegg sent me. After I took them out, I could mesh the adapter into the DVI slot, but I don't get any video.

If someone who has two CRTs hooked up to a Radeon 8500 can verify that the DVI slot has the extra pin slots I've described, this will answer a lot of questions.

I think that folks are probably right: the Newegg "bulk" Radeon 8500 will support a CRT and a flat panel, but not two CRTs. Hopefully Newegg will let me return this one - it's worthless to me without the dual video.


UPDATE I looked closely at the two photos linked to an earlier message. You can clearly see that the $112 Radeon has pin slots that the $99 unit does not. Open and shut case. Those of you (like me) who bought the $99 unit expecting to get dual CRT video are SOL. Time to check out Newegg's return policy.

 

[subpar]

Damn, I wish I knew about this earlier. Gonna have to return my Radeon8500LE since I wanted a CRT+CRT setup. I'll just eat the shipping costs and the 15% restock fee. An expensive lesson in reading the really fine print before you order.

 

[amheck]

I have a few questions:

1. Is the $112 card the same as the $99 card (3.3 and 250/275) just with the extra CRT output? My main focus would be on gaming, so I want the most performance there.

2. Would someone take the time to explain what the $112 card can do that the $99 one can't? I haven't really gotten into the dual monitors thing. What cool things can you do with a CRT+CRT output card?

I guess it depends on what cool things you can do with the $112 that will make the decision. Actually, I don't really need another video card. My voodoo3 2000 still does fine on most games, but this seems to be a really good deal. Wonder if waiting another 4-5 months will bring even better deals......

Aaron

 

[sleefer]

Morph- gotta give you all the credit, you "discovered" that extra DAC chip. Glad you did, too. It's worth the extra $13 to me to get the advantages of having it support the extra displays. I'd still like to know for sure the $112 has the same memory on-board as the $99 one before I buy it.
Edit: The description that Newegg gives for the $112 model in the chipset info says 230/230 on top, 250/230 on the bottom, 230/230 on Pricewatch. Looks like the reviews confirm that it's 230/230 with 3.3ns. They are mostly running it at 250/250 with 275/275 being where the problems start for them. It should be able to do 250/275 with 3.3ns RAM, right? What is the difference between the 230 and 250mhz cores, anyone know?

 

[wesman]

If you read the 'reviews' at newegg you will see that the $112 card comes clocked at 230/230, basicly LELE. However, the reviews mention the memory as 3.6 or 3.3, which means it should reach 275+ without a problem. How far the core will go is unkown. but in order to get a decent OC you will probably have to tweak the card (pencil trick, retail bios) in order to get the core and memory voltage up to retail levels.

According to this pencil trick article :

The Vcore is approximately 1,65V with OEM?s while the retails get 1,75Volts of juice. This is not dramatic. Most OEM?s can be clocked to a 300Mhz core frequency without a Voltage adjustment, any higher however, requires 1,75 Volts.

The memory is much worse. Mine was clocked at 3,18V. According to the specifications of Hynix, the RAM-chips need 3,20 to 3,65 Volts. This means that the OEM?s memory is underpowered! The Retails get 3,65V

As for the $99 card, Someone at rage3d who received a 250/275 card posted this:

got out handy old mutlimeter and determined that the Vmem is approximately 3.50v and the Vcore is apporximately 1.60v.

Which is around what you would expect for a 250/275 card, so it should OC pretty good without any mods.

 

[Gene046]

After a week of hesitation I broke down and ordered one yesterday. I hate it when this happens.. I don't really need it but It's a price I can't refuse.. DOH
Good to learn that it should overclock well, I'm gonna jump on that right away. One of the reasons why I got it is because I have a DVI LCD and right now I'm using an analog card. I heard DVI card -> DVI panel has faster overall response time.

 

[hpfanatic]

Well I ordered one of these over the weekend, and it is on its way. Problem is, I need the dual CRT model, and am going to have to return it. With the loss of shipping and the 15% fee, I will lose about $23 on this. Would anyone like to just buy this one from me, for what I paid?

 

[uwannawhat]

So the $99 card will do CRT & Flat Panel but not CRT + CRT or CRT + TV. But it should do Flat Panel + TV right?

 

[Ruined]

Arrrg I ordered for the same reason...where were ya guys last week =(

Thanks for the info all with any luck others won't make the same mistake.

Wow I just noticed that missing chip contains 3 DACs, strange i wonder what the other 2 DACs would be for.