Okay, I did a search on this... Radeon LE vs. Radeon

[sxr7171]

I did a search and learned that LE stands for "lite edition." I also noticed that the benchmarks showed on average a 3-5% slower frame rate for the 8500LE vs the regular 8500.

I used to think that the LE cards didn't have DVI to save money, but today I found that the LE cards indeed have DVI. Are these ATI retail cards clocked as OEM cards?

I looked at ATI's wonderfully stupid site to find a bunch of marketing bull$hit (sorry about the rant, but that is one slow site and there is nothing but catch phrases like "trueform", "catalyst" etc. even on the specification pages). Nvidia's site is probably similar but information on GeForce clock speeds, architectural differences of their lines etc, is so easily available from many different sources including Anandtech, and manufacturer websites.

Apparently the ATI cards have different performance specs for the DV and AIW cards as well. If anyone has the patience to either lay it out or point me to a place where it is already layed out, I would really appreciate it. Thanks!

 

[zxcv]

I believe the following is true but it may vary upon the manufacturer.

Radeon 8500 Retail is clocked at 275/275
Radeon 8500LE is clocked at 250/250
Radeon 8500 OEM is clocked at 250/250 or maybe even 230/230

You best bet is to get a 8500LE 128MB as this can overclock to 8500 Retail speeds quite easily.

 

[Rand]

ATi Retail Radeon 8500: 275/275
ATi OEM Radeon 8500: 250/250
ATi Radeon 8500LE: 250/250
ATi All in Winder Radeon 8500DV: 230/190
ATi All in Wonder Radeon 8500: 275/275

Third party Radeon 8500: 230/230-290/290 depending upon which vendors R8500 you choose.
The overwhelming majority of them are 250/250.

Gigabyte will soon have their 8500XT which clocks at 300/300, will take over from Soyo's Radeon 8500 at 290/290 as the highest performance R8500 available.

For the most part though, if you buy OEM/LE or third party it's almost always going to be 250/250.

 

[sxr7171]

Thanks a lot! The confusion was driving me crazy!

So if I buy an 8500LE, I don't need to flash it to get ot 275/275. It is nearly impossible to make a choice on pricewatch since there is little distinction between cards made by ATI, cards made by 3rd parties, cards that are 8500LE OEM, or 8500LE Retail, or 8500 retail, 8500 OEM and so forth. Add to that the 64/128MB variations, and I got a major headache looking at pricewatch.

So I will be looking for a 8500LE Made by ATI retail box.

 

[sxr7171]

Hi Rand! I didn't see your post when I composed mine above. Thanks for the info it makes it even clearer.

Some people warn against buying ATI cards not made by ATI, is this a real issue? Also, from what you're saying there is no difference between an 8500LE (either retail or OEM)and an 8500 OEM as long as both are made by ATI. That clears a lot of the confusion.

 

[zxcv]

Built by ATI = Retail
Power by ATI = OEM

The OEM cards are made by a third party so they will be clocked lower than the Retail cards made by ATI.

 

[merlocka]

Originally posted by: zxcv
Built by ATI = Retail
Power by ATI = OEM

The OEM cards are made by a third party so they will be clocked lower than the Retail cards made by ATI.

There are "Built by ATI" OEM cards.

 

[sxr7171]

It's really confusing because there are OEM cards built by ATI with an ATI one-year warranty and these sometmes say "powered by ATI" in the description.

Then there are OEM cards made by a 3rd party that feature either a 1 or 3 year dealer warranty and correctly described as "powered by ATI."

Then there's a popular 3rd party made OEM unit that runs at 250/275 and should offer better memory O/C.

I'm actually considering the very first entry on Price Watch the $93, ATI 8500LE 64MB OEM with a 1 year ATI warranty. I'm assuming that an ATI warranty means that the card is made by ATI. I'm thinking 64 MB should be enough until I upgrade again next spring.

Now to get some Tylenol...

Edit: There's a nice 3rd party built 275/275 OEM bulk card for $109 from Newegg that is looking good also. This one should O/C to 300/300 or something like that right?

 

[Rand]

Originally posted by: sxr7171
Hi Rand! I didn't see your post when I composed mine above. Thanks for the info it makes it even clearer.

Some people warn against buying ATI cards not made by ATI, is this a real issue? Also, from what you're saying there is no difference between an 8500LE (either retail or OEM)and an 8500 OEM as long as both are made by ATI. That clears a lot of the confusion.

A built by ATi Radeon 8500LE and an built by ATi Radeon 8500 are exactly the same.

IMHO there is absolutely no reason to avoid 'most' third party ATi Radeon boards. The majority of third party boards are still built by ATi themselves and shipped to the third party for branding and resale.
Hence the quality of most boards is every bit on par with ATi own branded Radeon 8500 cards.

Exceptions to this are that I do not trust Apollo Radeon boards and most of them are not manufactured by ATi.
I'm tenuous about Saphire boards due to lack of knowledge about who manufactures them and no first hand experience with the quality of manufacture or RMA/warranty policies.

GigaByte manufactures their own Radeon boards, but I'm confident of their and the warranty and quality is quite good.
Hercules has only very recently started manufacturing their Radeon 8500 boards, but I'd have absolutely no qualms with purchasing a Hercules Radeon 8500 either.

IMHO, the best price/performance Radeon 8500 available can be had at NewEgg, they've got a $95 Radeon8500LE clocked at 250/275 with 3.3ns DDR RAM which should yield excellent overclockability.
Either that or NewEgg's third party 275/275 clocked Radeon 8500 at $109.
An extra few bucks for a guarantee of a 275MHz core clock, it's up to you whether you believe it's worth it.

 

[Peter]

nonono ... "powered by ATi" cards are _all_ made by someone else but ATi.

You get cards that offer combinations that ATi themselves don't offer, you get cards that are clocked lower or the same like ATi's, and so on and so on. This expands the selection - no more no less.

"LE" suffix usually refers to lower clocks on core and/or RAM than the "normal" version of the same chip would run at - that said, the non-LE cards also differ in clocking from one to the next.

regards, Peter

 

[The_Lurker]

First off, LE does have a DVI, it doesn't have the DVI to D-Sub dongle that the retail comes with. Also, on top of the following chart,

ATi Retail Radeon 8500: 275/275
ATi OEM Radeon 8500: 250/250
ATi Radeon 8500LE: 250/250
ATi All in Winder Radeon 8500DV: 230/190
ATi All in Wonder Radeon 8500: 275/275

you can get a
ATi OEM Radeon 8500LE : 230/230
ATi Radeon 8500 LELE: 230/230

SEcondly, powerd by ati cards usually clock lower, and can't overclock as high as the real thing (the core anyways, since memory depends on the manufacturer's choice).

 

[Rand]

you can get a
ATi OEM Radeon 8500LE : 230/230
ATi Radeon 8500 LELE: 230/230

I've never seen nor heard of any true ATi branded R8500 coming clocked at 230/230 irregardless of status or naming.
The only 230/230 clocked cards I've ever seen personally or heard of anyone having are from Saphire or Apollo.

Where have you seen any ATi branded 230/230 clocked R8500's?
The only one's I've ever seen or heard of were third party boards. I'd really appreciate it if you can inform me where you've come across these... thanks in advance.


I've yet to see/hear of any ATi branded Radeon 8500 called the 'LELE'. The 'LELE' distinction was a nickname given to third party Radeon 8500 boards.
I can personally confirm that the three OEM Radeon 8500LE boards I've seen myself all came clocked at 250/250 not 230/230.

nonono ... "powered by ATi" cards are _all_ made by someone else but ATi.

So the popular rumour goes, but it's definitely not true. There are presntly 4 third party manufacturers that I'm aware of that physically manufacture their own Radeon 8500's.
There may well be others I'm not aware of, as I definitely cannot confirm the production status of very third party vendor.
For the most part though, the majority of third party vendors 'are' presently having their boards manufactured by ATi undeer the relative specifications desired by the third party vendor. ATi themselves go through TSMC for chip production.

 

[The_Lurker]

There have been cards clock at 230/230, im' sure of that. Head on over to Rage 3Dand ask how many ppl over there have R8500 clocked at 2300/230. A buncha ppl that bought OEM's got 230/230 cards. Also, the LELE's aren't very popluar, but i've seen them float around stores. Although i can't seem to find anymore At any rate, there are R8500's clocked at 230/230

 

[Rand]

Originally posted by: The_Lurker
There have been cards clock at 230/230, im' sure of that. Head on over to Rage 3Dand ask how many ppl over there have R8500 clocked at 2300/230. A buncha ppl that bought OEM's got 230/230 cards. Also, the LELE's aren't very popluar, but i've seen them float around stores. Although i can't seem to find anymore At any rate, there are R8500's clocked at 230/230

I know there are R8500's clocked at 230/230... I mentioned that in my original post. But your post seemed to imply they were ATi branded 230/230 boards... and the only one's I've seen are third party boards.

 

[Oracle]

NCIX in Vancouver has them for 150.00 cdn.It comes with an original ATI driver cd and 3.3 chips.Originally clocked at 230/230 i installed the retail bios upgrading it to 275/275.Then with Rage3D Tweak i overclocked it to 290/290.and there is still more left in it but i havent pushed it to the max yet.

 

[Kingofcomputer]

I think you're asking for the original Radeon 32MB DDR vs Radeon LE 32MB DDR.

Anyway, there are
Radeon 32MB DDR retail/bare card made by ATI
Radeon 32MB DDR LE bare card made by 3rd party assigned by ATI
Radeon 32MB DDR retail/bare card made by 3rd party

Keep in mind that ATI just do the R&D and outsource to 3rd party to make their cards, so even the original cards (retail or bare card) are not made by ATI actually, they don't show you which 3rd party makes them on the card. I believe that Sapphire is the OEM for the original cards, since many distributors in the US sell the Sapphire made "power by ATI" cards as so-called "ATI OEM" cards.

Sapphire's profile

For 8500,
many distributors sell
Radeon 8500 64MB LE 250/250 made by ATI bare card, came with ATI international cd.
Radeon 8500 64MB LE made by Sapphire bare card, came with Sapphire girl cd.
Radeon 8500 128MB LE made by Sapphire bare card, came with Sapphire girl cd.
all are being sold as original "ATI OEM" cards in the SI channel.