8500, 9000......im confused!

[movingincircles]

Ummmm I'm confused.... which is faster?
9000 64ddr or
8500 64ddr

i saw that the 8500's price tag was higher than 9000 at the same store

 

[funkychicken]

8500 is noteably faster with the 8500LE slightly faster than the 9000 I believe.

 

[AnAndAustin]

A few facts for you:

GF4MX (DX7) cards are simply slightly enhanced GF2 (DX7) cards and are inferior certainly in 3D features and perf to GF3 cards.
Rad8500/8500LE is intended to compete with GF3 cards and like them sports full DX8 hw functions.
Rad9000/9000pro is intended to compete with GF4MX cards, something it does fantasticly, it can even rival GF3 cards and like them sports full DX8 hw functions but NOT DX9 as some people think. It is a cut-down Rad8500 and VERY little more, intended to be cheaper to produce at the cost of performance.
There are 2 types of Rad9000, the standard Rad9000 and the much faster (20%ish) Rad9000pro, much like the standard Rad8500 has a slightly slower (-10%ish) brother the Rad8500LE.
As with all Radeon cards, double check clocks as this often varies between manus as well as whther it is retail or OEM.

So to answer your question briefly (sorry), Rad8500 is a fair bit faster in nearly all benchmarks than Rad9000pro which is simply a cheaper to produce largely inferior card. Still a great buy, esp considering the prices. In any case a 128MB card is VERY wise on a new purchase.

 

[Semper Fi]

Thanks for the post. I was also a bit confused. I haven't been following the vid market lately and am thinking of upgrading, have a Radeon 7000 (32MB) right now.

 

[Peter]

In simple terms, R9000 is the "value" card of the new generation, R8500 is the "performance" card of the past generation. R9000 series is to replace R7500.

Typically R9000 "pro" cards clock CPU/RAM at 275/275 MHz, while the plain R9000 typically is at 250/200 ... and I've seen a "low cost" variant with 250/183 too. The benefit of the non-pro version is it's fanless.

 

[AnAndAustin]

Yup when buying Radeon do check those clocks as they often vary depending upon whether they are retail or OEM as well as the more obvious manufacturer of the card. It makes sense to o/c these cards, esp Rad9000 and how far this will get will depend upon a fan for the core and the ns RAM used for the RAM. I have heard that both types of Rad9000 can run fanless, along with more widespread dual display and enhanced MPEG playback, they're all certainly something they have over Rad8500 cards ... if you are willing to give up a little perf for them.

In terms of o/c'ing, with a fan it seems as though both Rad9000 (250/400) and 9000pro (275/550) cards should hit 300 core, and so long as Rad9000 uses 4.0ns RAM it should get from 400 to about 550! If Rad9000pro uses 3.6ns RAM it should be hitting 300/600+ ... but if they are the cases (and expect it to vary with manu) then surely ATI would have set these cards that little bit higher?

In DDR 5.0ns RAM's technical limit is 400, 4.5ns 444, 4.0ns 500 and 3.6ns 555 although you often find them capable of a little bit more. It is wise for any manu to use RAM whose technical limit is a fair bit below the req clock mostly to avoid wastage and ensure a longer life. This would suggest that Rad9000 could use 5.0ns although a reduced clock like 366 (183x2 for DDR) would really be wise. So it seems Rad9000 are most likely to use 4.5ns or possibly 4.0ns. Rad9000pro will use at least 3.6ns with 3.3ns certainly a possibility. It would be very interesting to see how these cards actually o/c, esp with different manus. Anybody know if there's much variance in Rad9000/9000pro cards with retail vs OEM?