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Radeon 8500.. worth it?

M

MistaTastyCakes

Golden Member
Well, I'm looking to do a video upgrade, and I'm not looking to spend the cash for a higher end GeForce 4, and I'm kinda interested in the 64mb Radeon 8500 Retail. I'm sort of on a budget, and price/performance wise, this looks to be a real nice card. I'd go for the 128mb version, but I don't use AA and all often, and I can't justify the big price difference between the two.

There's also the Ti4200 coming out, but until it comes out and is available, I prolly won't be looking into it. I'm also kinda ready to give something other than Nvidia a try, since Nvidia is what I've ALWAYS used and I like to keep my experiences and options wide open.

So, I guess all in all.. is the 8500 worth it for $160 over a GF2 Pro?
 
I think it will be a worthwhile upgrade. They are very good for the money. I'm kinda want to try a different brand card too. That's why I went with a P4 over an Athlon XP. I've just built too many Athlon systems that it was getting boring.
 
Totaly worth it, make sure you use dricers from redsoft.com, I was scared to nuy mine at first but once I got it I was totaly happen with it.
 
Cool 🙂

Stupid Newegg is no longer showing it!! Grrrr...I'll have to hit Pricewatch.

I've heard some bad stuff about ATI drivers. I play Q3 Urban Terror (CS without cheats and with decent graphics 🙂), Deus Ex, Medal of Honor, Ghost Recon, the occasional FS game, and a few other pretty big name shooters. Does it have any big problems with those games?
 
I upgraded from a Leadtek GF2Pro to the 8500. I think it was a good move for me, I am pleased with performance increase 155 from Newegg.🙂
 
I love my retail Radeon 8500! I havent had any problems with it. I upgraded from a Geforrce 256 32meg sdr. Of course I see a major difference. I think the 8500 will run anything thrown at it for sometime to come.
 
I'd really wait for the Ti4200. if you can. If you'd spend 160 on the radeon, spending 180 on the geforce shouldn't break the bank and you will get a lot more performance for your dollar.
 


<< Stupid Newegg is no longer showing it!! >>



Get the 8500LE oem for 115.00 and o/c it to retail speeds. Mine came w/ 3.6ns Hynix chips.
 


<< Get the 8500LE oem for 115.00 and o/c it to retail speeds. Mine came w/ 3.6ns Hynix chips. >>



Hmm, does the whole flashing the BIOS to the retail one idea work, or is it just some sort of a rumor? Also, to do so, would I need extra cooling? How about one of the third party LE cards?
 
Yes the bios flash works, and you don't need additional cooling unless you go over 300MHz I do believe. I personally would rather stick with the ATI mfg'ed 8500's.
 
Well, I think I'm sold on the 128mb Radeon 8500 LE then 🙂

I'll test it out for a couple weeks at retail speeds and if all is well, I'll just flash it to the retail BIOS.

$148 for a 128mb card that can reach Ti500 speeds...I can go for that 🙂

Thanks!

edit: Just looked at the third party card specs and prices.. what a joke. Do they even offer anything over ATI's solutions?
 
Tedit: Just looked at the third party card specs and prices.. what a joke. Do they even offer anything over ATI's solutions?

Yup, a purty lookin box 😛
 
Shop around a little. I just traded in a geforce for the 8500. I found the 64meg version on clearance at Best Buy for $104. Its an awesome card for that price and have had zero problems deleting the nvidia drivers and using the ATI card.

The ti4200 will be a great card for the price, but for my money I got excellent dvd playback, a good performing card in games like racing and flight sims (excellent AA for those) as well as FPS games, dual display capability (can use two different monitors at different resolutions or stretch the desktop plus more), S-video out, HDTV support, etc. You may get a geforce ti4200 for $180 but I doubt it will have dual monitor support or tv-out. Thats just something else to consider.

I almost waited for the ti4200, but glad I found the deal on the 8500.
 
They come with dual head, software etc...

One thing you might be highly intrested is that if the board is made by ATi I dunno if the transistor layout has changed any but I know for the original 64 meg edition there was a voltage mod that would allow you to push the memory *WAY* up..

Get some ransinks/Arctic silver thermal epoxy and attach a Pal8045 (Might loose a couple of PCI slots. 😀😛🙂) (Actually i'm just kidding, a less extravagent sollution will do fine, like a 20CFM Ys tech and a FOP38 or something.. ) and if you don't mind loosing a few PCI slots a few passes with a pencil and a multi meter to tell you when you've gone too far will get your Radeon8500 running at like, 300/300 or something... the original Radeon8500 LE (Curse you ATi! Curse you! I paid 300$ for your retail piece of crap and you gave me a Radeon8500 LE!!! NOOOO!!! :| :Q:| :Q:| :Q) 64 meg version had it's voltage cut down. A little pencil trick or just replacing the resistor and a multimeter to keep ya safe could get you into 300 territory easy!
 


<< I've heard some bad stuff about ATI drivers. I play Q3 Urban Terror (CS without cheats and with decent graphics 🙂), Deus Ex, Medal of Honor, Ghost Recon, the occasional FS game, and a few other pretty big name shooters. Does it have any big problems with those games? >>



There were some problems last year, but they're pretty much ironed out. I use the official 6043 drivers and never had a major problem, but you can find the leaked 6071 drivers at Rage3D.com which are said to be even better. Deus Ex had a stuttering problem, but it was fixed in the 6043s.

To me, it has been a great decision - just as fast or faster than a GF3 Ti500 at half the price, and with oodles of goodies (Smoothvision FSAA, dual display, TV out, DVD hardware acceleration, and more). Hell, they even include all the adapters and S-video cables you need in the retail box!
 
The Radeon 8500 has better image quality than the GeForce3 line of cards as well. I have seen a few website comparing the 2 visually, the the Radeon 8500 easily wins in that category. When you already have much more frames than possible needed, image quality should weigh very heavy in your decision.
 
If you're a hardcore gamer who needs top notch performance, then you should wait for the GeForce4 Ti4200. However, the Radeon 8500 will reproduce GF3-like performance (maybe even a little better) and you'll get superior 2D quality with the Radeon.

However, here's what I suggest you do. Get the Radeon 8500 LE (for about $100). Flash its BIOS to the retail BIOS. O/C it for best performance. Since you were originally going to spend around $160-$180 but since the 8500 LE is only $100, you just saved yourself about $80. Use that $80 and get yourself a new hard drive from Newegg.

Your hard drive is a 5400rpm Maxtor. If you can get another hard drive that's 7200rpm, you can be sure you'll see a good general performance increase.

Remember, your computer is only as fast as its slowest component.
 
Radeon 8500 (64MB) is the best bang for the buck (read: price/performance) out there right now. And that is likely to continue, even after the Ti4200 rears its head (if it ever does 😀). Absolutely stunning IQ, best in class DVD, and killer 3D performance. Sure it is a little slower in synthetic benchies (ie 3DMark2K1) but so what? And are you really going to tell me you can spot the difference between 150fps and 167fps? 😀
 
It's not that the we can tell the difference from high frame rates, but isn't it true that the 8500 kinda craps out at higher res? I'm not saying it's a bad cars, it's a great card, but wouldn't the 4200 be better "future proof" if there is sucha thing.
 
I bought this RADEON 8500 for 76.50 bucks from BestBuy, which has it on sale right now. Absolutely LOVE it, with 1/5 price of the Nvidia G4 4600, it is only 15% slower, and have much better image quality, this is amazing. BTW, it almost beat regularly clocked G4 4600 according to the score from AnandTech Review, which only scored 9814. Check out my thread
HERE
 
Thanks for the help, all. I'll most likely be picking up the 128mb LE as soon as I get the cash, and bump it up as high as I can get it.

John: Do you have any sources for the BIOS flashing info? I've heard that the LE's can run into voltage probs and such when flashed to retail BIOS from some places, and I was just kinda curious.
 
A Radeon 8500 will provide a massive performance difference over your GF2 Pro but I highly advise you to wait a few more weeks(?) for the GF2 Ti4200 because you'll get greater than Ti500 levels of performance and a genuine GF4 GPU for only $179. While it's nice to be open-minded I've generally found that if something's worked well in the past for you, you should stick to a similar setup again. There's no denying that nVidia's driver support is simply superb.
 
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