Beware of underclocked Radeon 8500's (250/250)

[Leon]

It turned out that ATI lied again, and OEM units are clocked 250/250. Many people reporting that Newegg Radeon 8500 are clocked lower than ATI claims.

Dell deal is supposebly retail, so this shouldn't be an issue.

So, if you still planning to get the card, resist the temptation, and stick with Dell.

 

[Vegito]

oh lucky me.. 20% off dell day.. wonder if the 8500 is still listed...

 

[wfbberzerker]

theres already a post about this.



be vary wary of underclocked radeons!

 

[Vegito]

yeah, with that 20% off, it's cheaper than oem, so just hop over to dell and order it back order.. maybe when more review comes out, it still wont ship and you get to cancel it..

 

[Finality]

I thought it was the OEMs that where clocked @ 275/275 and the retails @ 250/250.

So I guess this means that all cards are now 250/250.

 

[QuestionsandAnsweres]

Finality
NO

the retail is 275/275. OEMS are 250/250

 

[BlvdKing]

I have asked about the clock on OEM's at Anandtech before. All I got was, "of course it's clocked like retails at 275/275, JACKASS!" There has always been something fishy about ATI OEM cards, usually it's lower clock speed.

 

[artemedes]

Okay, Okay,

An ATI rep claimed that the OEM's that ATI produced would be clocked the same as retail. So if that is not the case then somebody lied.

But, ATI is now allowing third party manufacturers to build vid cards based off their chipset. If ATI sells somebody the R200 chip they
probably have very little control over the memory and other components used in the final video card, so it could certainly be clocked slower,
and ATI wouldn't be to blame for it.


So we need to know if these OEM's are made by ATI or another manufacturer. Anyone know?

 

[KrispyKremer]

Could you provide a link to an official press release that states this please?

 

[rickn]

ATI never publishes clockspeeds, but Rage3d.com did an interview with one of the guys from ATI and he commented on clockspeeds


ATI Responds on 8500 Clock Speed and More - 3:33 pm EST - Ichneumon [Comments (2)]
I fired off an email yesterday to John B. Challinor II APR, who is Director of Public Relations at ATI. I think they will be of great interest to all of you, and a big thanks to John for responding so quickly!
(note: I have ammended my questions some for this post simply for space reasons... I just removed some of the excess question clarifications.)



Me: Rumor is growing that we'll see the Radeon 8500 released at 300mhz, not the 250mhz that the original preview cards were clocked at. The 75million tris/s spec quoted on the Radeon 8500 web page, vs. the 62.5million tris/s spec quoted on the 8500DV web page suggests this to be the case as well, as we know from initial previews that the 62.5million tris/s number corresponds to a 250mhz core clock. If possible, can you confirm this?
JohnC: [The] RADEON 8500 will ship at 275/275 in early October.

Me: Given the confusion at the release of the original Radeon regarding Retail vs. OEM clock speeds, can we expect similar differences with the release of the 8500? The key question being whether there will be a clear delineation between the Retail card clock speeds and the OEM clock speeds? [...]

JohnC: At this writing, [the] RADEON will ship at 275/275 in retail and OEM.

Me: We have been told that with the release of the 8500 series, the software emulation path for TRUFORM in current Radeon drivers will be removed. [...] Is there any chance that current Radeon users will be allowed to enable software emulation of TRUFORM [...] for those who realize the performance hit that will be incurred? [...]

JohnC: TRUFORM is a feature only available in [the] RADEON 8500.

Well, that pretty much sums up a few of the questions that have been hotly debated lately. Looks like ATI has split the difference between 250 and 300 as was speculated a few weeks ago in this post. Not quite the engineering feat that 300mhz would have been, but still a nice boost from the 250mhz we all initially expected. The OEM vs. Retail answer should ease the concerns of those of you with preorders in right now. Kind of a bummer about TRUFORM, but I know you all want to go out and snag an 8500 at release anyway. ;-)

 

[Soccerman]

all I can say is, boo hoo. go cry in a corner if you're surprised, I certainly am not.

heh, besides, you probably can boost it that extra 25 mhz you feel so sad about..

 

[Pabster]

Sorry guys, but the 2 Radeon 8500 OEM units I received from NewEgg this morning are both clocked 250/250. They overclock easily to 275/275, but that's not really the point. I'm also a bit confused why they don't include the DVI adapter. Ah well. Now if only the 8500DV's would arrive ...