Radeon 8500 LE vs. Radeon 8500 #100-431001

[Metalloid]

Hi, I am probably going to get rid of my Hercules Prophet II Pro and want to buy a Radeon 8500. Can anyone tell me if there is a real performance difference between the 230mzh core LE, the 250mhz core OEM version, and the 275mhz core retail version? If there isnt a big difference than I may wait until Hercules Radeon 8500 LE comes out. Thanks

 

[FlamingPanther]

Yes you will see a big difference between the different RAM speeds,
usually the core speed doesn't make that much of a difference as long as not like 100 Mhz in either direction...
But the RAM is the difference between 6000 3dmarks, and 8000+ 3dmarks.

I would suggest you go with an oem version.
Because they are about $100-$150 cheaper than retail, and overclock better than the LE
and they can be overclocked fairly easy with Powerstrip.
I am running my OEM at 282/282 Core/Clock
that's a 32 Mhz or 13% overclock

I have 4 Ns Hynix Chips on my card, but if you can find an OEM with the 3.6 Ns chips, they overclock better
without the voltage mod than the 4 Ns do without the Vmod.
(with the Vmod, its much closer)

But, on the flip side, the warranty for the OEM cards is usually though the seller of the card,
and it's like 30 days,
as well as mine did not come with the DVI-VGA connector, which I really wanted

Just my $0.02

 

[Rand]

There is a performance difference, but IMHO the difference isnt large enouch to make it worth paying the rather large price increase fromthe OEM to the Retail model.
The difference is about enouch to make the difference between getting 210FPS or 200FPS in Quake3Arena, so approximately a 5% performance differential between the 250/250 and 275/275.
Plus many of the OEM cards seem to hit the 275/275 of the retail relatively easily.

 

[Metalloid]

Im not really worried about price. I was just interested in getting the Hercules version of the card. Do you know when the Hercules Radeon 8500 (non LE version) is coming out? I have seen that the LE is coming out in late Feb. Thanks