Radeon VE or Radeon LE?

vlieps

Senior member
Jun 15, 2000
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Which card is better, getting more and more confused.
And then there is this Radeon 7000, Radeon 7200 etc. What is really what in this business, do not understand why do they have to call 2 cards in 666 different names - so f... confusing. Please help.

Well, basically I want a fanless graphics card to replace my Voodoo5. Do not play games anyway, well, some racing games, but very seldom, so, some 3D is needed still...
 

Brian48

Diamond Member
Oct 15, 1999
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The VE is a crippled version of the regular Radeon card while the LE is basically the same card, only at a slower speed.

Get the LE.
 

vlieps

Senior member
Jun 15, 2000
276
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What do You mean by crippled, both are somehow crippled as far as I know, so which one is more crippled and how exactly?
 

Rand

Lifer
Oct 11, 1999
11,071
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Radeon VE is a "cut-down" Radeon core with only one of the usual two pixel pipelines, and it uses a64bit memory bus rather then the usual 128bit memory bus though the DDR SDRAM offsets the penalty slightly.
It also has no T&L engine at all, and has a downgraded 300MHz RAMDAC.
It add's ATi's HydraVision dual monitor implementation.

ATi Radeon LE is a full Radeon core but it's clocked at 148/148 instead of 166/166 that most of the classic Radeon's were clocked at.
The only other difference is HyperZ is disabled in DirextX by default, there is however a registry hack that can easily re-enable HyperZ.
After the registry hack it is for all intents and purposes totally identical to the regular 32MB DDR Radeon except clocked at 148 rather then 166, it is easily overclockable though.

Unquestionably the Radeon LE will handily blow away the Radeon VE in gaming, there is no competition at all. The LE is a vastly superior card.
The VE has one benefit and only one: A cheap card with high quality dual monitor implementation.

If you want a dual monitor setup, and don't need much gaming performance that VE is a dream come true. Otherwise the LE is clearly the far better card.

The Radeon 7000 is modifed Radeon VE that removes the DualHead, but is otherwise identical.
The Radeon 7200 is the same as the classic 64MB SDR Radeon.
Radeon 7500 is the same as the classic Radeon, but with a slightly improved memory controller and clocked FAR FAR higher- 290/230.... and is hence quite easily the fastest of the cards based on the original Radeon core. It also has TV-Out and ATi's HydraVision dual monitor implementation.
 

Kingofcomputer

Diamond Member
Apr 6, 2000
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<< Well, basically I want a fanless graphics card to replace my Voodoo5. Do not play games anyway, well, some racing games, but very seldom, so, some 3D is needed still... >>

so you don't need tv-out and dual output? LE is the best buy. under $70 now.