Bulk Radeon 8500 LE 128MB

[Lizardman]

I am sure most people know about the great radeon 8500 64mb bulk over at newegg for $95 shipped. The reason everyone thinks its so great is because it comes with 3.3ns ram. Anyway I saw a 8500 128mb bulk at newegg for $107 shipped. I was wondering if any one has heard anything about this bulk card. The oem 8500le 128mb version got bad reviews at newegg due to bad memory but this bulk version appears to have BGA memory which is different than the 128 oem version.

Poorly rated 128mb

BGA memory 128mb card

If this card has better memory than the 5.1ns chips that the oem 128mb version had then its definatly a winner for that price.

According to the egg page 25 people have rated the card but there are no reviews. Strange eh??

Link to page with product on it.

 

[AnAndAustin]

Well to be honest I'd go for the 128MB card anyway. Even if the RAM doesn't clock as high as the 64MB version you'll still find the card faster in most games and certainly all of the new games. 64MB cards are going to be hit hard, so buying a new 64MB card is not a good move even if it will o/c better.

Case in point are the GF4TI4200 cards which come in 2 general flavours.

1. 64MB standard clocks of 250/500 and o/c of 300/600.
2. 128MB standard clocks of 250/444 and o/c of 300/550.

 

[AnAndAustin]

In some current games (Commanche4 and SW-JK2 IIRC) we see that even a 4200-64MB o/c'ed to 300/600 only gives perf equal to a 4200-128 at 250/444! Even at standard clocks even though the 64MB version has 13% faster RAM throughput we only see 1-3% difference in many games, not only that but by o/c'ing a 128MB version to standard 64MB speeds we get a 7% improvement. The hit when a card's RAM is breached is pretty significant and will certainly be a big issue for the newest games like UT2003 and DoomIII. Even if the 128MB Rad8500LE uses slower RAM it is still a better buy than the 64MB, and if it has RAM as good as the 64MB version then all the better.

 

[Lizardman]

Yeah thats why I want to get the 128mb version but i still want to know what kind of ram it has. 4ns is ok but not 5ns like people got on the other oem from newegg.

 

[AnAndAustin]

Well if Rad8500 run the RAM like GF4TI cards then this is what to expect the diffs to be:

RAM: 5.0ns Technical speed limit: 400 Actual attainable speed: 440
RAM: 4.5ns Technical speed limit: 444 Actual attainable speed: 470
RAM: 4.0ns Technical speed limit: 500 Actual attainable speed: 550
RAM: 3.6ns Technical speed limit: 555 Actual attainable speed: 620

Old TSOP RAM, at least on the GF4TI cards, doesn't hold back the perf or speed of the RAM until you begin to exceed 600mhz and therefore 3.3ns is the first point at which BGA really becomes necessary and should technically deliver 606mhz but tends to hit 650-700mhz!

It really pi$$es me off that the ns rating of the RAM is so crucial and yet so damn hard to find out!

 

[Lizardman]

I wish I knew the ns rating the BGA memory for that card. :disgust:

Come on anyone here have it??

 

[woodie1]

I didn't buy my 8500LE-128 from egg but mine has 3.6s Infineon chips on it.

 

[Lizardman]

WHere did you buy your card at woodie?

 

[Lizardman]

AHHH question answered

SPECS

 

[gsethi]

Originally posted by: Lizardman
I wish I knew the ns rating the BGA memory for that card. :disgust:

Come on anyone here have it??

the 3.6ns memory and lower is BGA memory.