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

[kennethfine]

John asks what dual desktop CRT-CRT is good for.

If you do any kind of web development, graphic design, or programming, two screens is a huge time saver. For that matter, if you have a job like writing or journalism, it's handy to have two screens. You can use one screen as a reference area and the second screen as your dev area. If I had my druthers, I'd take three screens.

Someone else suggested we simply use any AGP card with a $30 ATI Xpert 98. That's fine, but one of the nice things about the ATI "Hydravision" software is that it helps you manage multiple desktops. Think about the interface issues for a moment: when you hit "maximize", do you want the window maximized across both screens, or one, or ? Hydravision helps you with this and many other window management tasks; you can set sizes/screen locations on a per-application basis, assign hotkeys, and generally do many cool things that are not possible with an AGP/PCI setup.

For everyone who is wondering about whether the $112 unit does CRT-CRT -- it sure as hell better. Newegg took the $99 unit back, and I immediately reordered the $112 card. Hopefully it does the trick.

 

[GotoDengo]

How do I tell the rated speed in ns of the memory on my Radeon?

 

[treemonkey]

Originally posted by: kennethfine
John asks what dual desktop CRT-CRT is good for.

If you do any kind of web development, graphic design, or programming, two screens is a huge time saver. For that matter, if you have a job like writing or journalism, it's handy to have two screens. You can use one screen as a reference area and the second screen as your dev area. If I had my druthers, I'd take three screens.

Someone else suggested we simply use any AGP card with a $30 ATI Xpert 98. That's fine, but one of the nice things about the ATI "Hydravision" software is that it helps you manage multiple desktops. Think about the interface issues for a moment: when you hit "maximize", do you want the window maximized across both screens, or one, or ? Hydravision helps you with this and many other window management tasks; you can set sizes/screen locations on a per-application basis, assign hotkeys, and generally do many cool things that are not possible with an AGP/PCI setup.

For everyone who is wondering about whether the $112 unit does CRT-CRT -- it sure as hell better. Newegg took the $99 unit back, and I immediately reordered the $112 card. Hopefully it does the trick.

This is very true. Dual CRT is very useful. If you're not a gamer the Radeon VE is a great dual card (very cost effective) and comes with a DVI-CRT adapter even if it's OEM.

 

[hpfanatic]

For everyone who is wondering about whether the $112 unit does CRT-CRT -- it sure as hell better. Newegg took the $99 unit back, and I immediately reordered the $112 card. Hopefully it does the trick.

I agree. I refused shipment on the $99 and my $112 card will be here on Monday. And it sure as hell better do CRT-CRT!

 

[Solarium]

There's no need for the pencil trick, I got my Radeon (from newegg) from 250/275 to 300/325 @ 110mhz FSB, running stably without extra cooling

I tested using 3D mark 2001SE, and got around 6500 with a 1.2ghz Duron @ 1.32 (crappy motherboard) and used the above speed for the Radeon. Compared to around 5500 my roommate gets with his geforce 3 (regular) and around the same speed CPU, I'd say radeon is definately better than possibly any Geforce 3 available. I haven't tested it against Gf4 4200, but I'd say 4200 will definately win most (not all) the benchmarks against the 8500.

 

[Gavin]

Hey guys, I just received my Radeon 8500LE($99) from newegg. It did come clocked at 250/275 with 3.3ns Hynix mem. Though I'm having a problem ever since I installed the card. I posted a thread on it in the tech support forum, if anyone knows what's wrong or can give me some insight, it would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

Here's the link to the thread:

http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview.cfm?catid=32&threadid=799139

 

[igowerf]

Originally posted by: Solarium
There's no need for the pencil trick, I got my Radeon (from newegg) from 250/275 to 300/325 @ 110mhz FSB, running stably without extra cooling

Mine locked up in 3dmark2k1 at 300/300. I'm running 275/300 right now without problems though.

 

[TechieJ]

Received my card from Newegg on friday. For some odd reason there are heavy black marker markings on every chip/capacitor as though it had been refurbished and the individual parts had to be verified in working condition. Anyone else get these markings on their card also?

From reading the Newegg reviews, the $112 version comes in 3.3, 3.6, or 4ns ram. You are not guaranteed 3.3. However, if you need the dual monitor option, it's a good deal but will possibly perform slower.

For the issue of 3DMark, there was a "controversy" a while back that ATI tweaks their drivers specifically to get higher scores in 3DMark and Quake3 since those were the default benchmarking tests used at the time of the release for these cards. You have to actually use the card in games to compare to a Geforce3.

I have an overclocked Geforce3 TI200 in my other workstation and I can say that the OpenGL performance is considerably better than this Radeon 8500LE overclocked to 295/295 (stable at higher speeds but gets Extremely hot). My frame rates in Tribes 2 are consistently 10-15fps faster on my GF3 TI200 than the Radeon 8500LE. C&C Renegade (DirectX game) runs about the same on both cards however my textures seem very washed out on the Radeon 8500LE compared to the GF3 TI200. I have used Rage3D Tweak for adjusting my settings but a few graphic problems still persist. With the next driver release, hopefully OpenGL performance will increase and some bugs will get fixed. On a side note, the 2D on the Radeon 8500LE is a little better than my GF3 TI200.

 

[ClockerXP]

I just got my card on Friday (placed order on Wednesday afternoon & I'm in Michigan!). My card also is a 275mhz Memory, 250Mhz core card with the 3.3ns memory. It also came with some DVI cable thingy which I have no idea what to do with...

C

 

[chrisjor]

I just ordered a P4 1.6a and Asus P4b266c...I have not ordered ram or HSF yet. Will this Radeon run well in this system when it/if it oc's to 2.4 ghz? Any conflicts anyone may know of?

 

[chrisjor]

 

[SimMike2]

It also came with some DVI cable thingy which I have no idea what to do with...

From the pictures at Newegg, this cable looks like a S-video cable for the TV-out, not a DVI adapter cable. I don't have the card, so I could be wrong.

 

[ClockerXP]

It has the small round connector that kinda looks like PS2 whatever it is. What do you do with it??

C

 

[cstring]

Originally posted by: ClockerXP
It has the small round connector that kinda looks like PS2 whatever it is. What do you do with it??

C

That cable is for Tv-out, you can get a s-video to composite if your tv doesn't support s-video

 

[qwex]

just found out about this deal, and it's extremely tempting. I have an original 32mb DDR radeon, and this would be a nice upgrade. but I'm wondering if the rest of my system will be a bottleneck - 900mhz athlon tbird and 256mb plain old pc133 ram. will this hold me back from getting a big performance increase?

 

[kehi]

will this card work ok with a p4b266-c with 150fsb?? Please lmk


If anyone has one of these 250/275 3.3ns cards hoping to use dual crt's and realize they got the wrong one, I'd be willing to purchase it from you. PM me please

 

[idfubar]

Originally posted by: SunshineDaydream
Anyone have a head's up on that white box version of the card? Does the $112 version support dual-CRT?

Anyone got a follow-up on this question?

 

[pmark]

just found out about this deal, and it's extremely tempting. I have an original 32mb DDR radeon, and this would be a nice upgrade. but I'm wondering if the rest of my system will be a bottleneck - 900mhz athlon tbird and 256mb plain old pc133 ram. will this hold me back from getting a big performance increase?

I'm wondering the same thing as i have the same setup but with a Duron 900...

 

[TJ69]

Do I need a dvi-to-crt adapter or is there already a crt port for my monitor?

Thanks

 

[jacky72]

Originally posted by: TJ69
Do I need a dvi-to-crt adapter or is there already a crt port for my monitor?

Thanks

there is one crt port and one dvi port, but u can't do crt+crt/crt+tv

 

[kehi]

do these cards handle high fsb settings ok?? Please lmk

 

[hpfanatic]

Got my $112 8500 today and it does do the CRT - CRT! I have it hooked up to 2 IBM 21" Monitors, one using the DVI-VGA adaptor also from Newegg. Real nice!

 

[kennethfine]

 

[kennethfine]

I also swapped the $99 unit for the $112 part, and can confirm that the $112 unit does CRT-CRT. I'm thrilled - I've worked on a Radeon VE for the last year, and have wanted a dual-monitor unit that can do decent gaming (the VE can't).

I loaded up Powerstrip. It reports a 230 core and 230 memory speed, so you are definitely going to take a performance hit if you want the dually action, here. I OCed it to 250-250 without a problem. 275-275 resulted in artifacting, so I pulled it down. I'll play with it more, later. Honestly, I'm not that concerned: I can play UT at 1280x1024 smoothly, and if it can do that, it will suit my needs for the time being.

As I mentioned earlier, the Hydravision software is mature at this point, and works really well.

Anyone know what will happen to the Hydravision if I hook up a third monitor via a PCI slot? Will the hydravision software recognize the third desktop? I have a spare ATI XPert 98 lying around.

 

[St3v3]

Just a note: Newegg is still shipping out the 3.3 NS ones, I just got mine today ... one awesome card, a huge difference from my Geforce3 especially in Quality!