how is the 8500??

[OS]

In particular, how are the drivers?

If I can get one for 40 dollars, is it worth it?

I have a GF2 GTS-V right now

 

[Killrose]

Snatch that up as fast as you can. $40 is a steal, even for the lowest clocked model with 4ns ram. I've had several and they are awesome.
Got the 9500-hacked-9700 now.

 

[PliotronX]

I've had my 64Megger for several months and have loved every minute of it. It was a giant leap over my GF2 GTS @ 250/370, made all games smooth at 1024x768*32bpp. I'm now playing around with the BIOS from a Radeon 9100 and it seems to work well. I got it for $90 at Newegg, the Built-by-ATI one and it has 3.3ns memory so it overclocked well to 300/305 before volt modding/cooling. $40 is, like Killrose said, a steal. Make sure to use the Catalyst 2.5, 3.0a, or Omega drivers, and check out the wealth of information at Rage3D (and that sweet tweaking tool, new version 2.7 came out hours ago) if you get it.

 

[tapir]

R8500 was the best card to come out of 2001, and it's still better (hence 9100 re-name) than ATi's budget line which runs in the $80 range.

$40 = great deal.

 

[WarSong]

For $40 you can't beat that value. It will be significantly faster than your GF2 GTS-V. ATI drivers are a lot better than they used to be.

 

[SickBeast]

Sounds like some toasty hot stolen videocard action going on there...even on the forums here I have yet to see an R8500 listed for less than $70 shipped.

I saw on Judge Judy that if you buy something hot and the original owner finds out about it, tough luck for you, they take it away and you don't get your money back.

 

[OS]

Originally posted by: SickBeast
Sounds like some toasty hot stolen videocard action going on there...even on the forums here I have yet to see an R8500 listed for less than $70 shipped.

I saw on Judge Judy that if you buy something hot and the original owner finds out about it, tough luck for you, they take it away and you don't get your money back.

Nah, mwave puts out refurb/return stuff for sale at their warehouse. I was there and I thought I saw an 8500 for 40 bux, but I didn't get it cause I didn't know what the deal was with the 8500. Went back today, naturally it's gone.

They do have hordes of dirt cheap motherboards there tho.

 

[SickBeast]

Dude!! Can you hook us up with some nice refurb hardware then? I'll take a 9500pro to go with a side of fries!!

 

[ScrewFace]

I had a RADEON 7500 and I loved it so much that I sold it and got a RADEON 8500. The only reason I sold my 8500 was because of one game that vsync never worked in: Quake. ATI could never get vsync right in Quake and it's still my favourite game so I tried and bought a GeForce4-Ti4400. But, I am looking forward to buying a RADEON 9700 Pro once the price drops a bit and ATI gets vsnc right.

I don't think you'll get a retail (Built by ATI) RADEON 8500 (275/275) for a measly $40. I sold mine for $250 Canadian ($175 U.S.) just last month. You may be able to get a RADEON 8500LELE (230/300) for $40.

 

[blackhawk]

If you sold your 8500 last month for 175us, thats more than the retail price 9 months ago new! Mine was 125 a year ago, slightly used.

Great video card though, huge leap from an ATI AIW radeon performance wise and still doing well.

 

[lifeguard1999]

$40 is a great price.

I run a 8500 64 MB that was bought from Dell for $200 ... 18 months ago. It has run great ever since.