Sapphire is losing my respect!

[rogue1979]

First I noticed the 8500LE and 9100 cards made by Sapphire are really using crappy memory these days. I think they are just using these cards to unload a bunch of slower memory chips. There would be nothing wrong with this if they listed info on their website or forced vendors to list clock speeds in the title descriptions. Just look at one of these Sapphire cards on pricewatch or even a sealed package at a local store, and good luck trying to determine the default clock speeds.

Now the butt wipes are cutting corners on the Radeon 9000 Pro 128MB. We all know that the 9000 non pro can come with really slow memory, but I was under the impression ATI has specified the 9000 Pro to always be at 275/275. I mean looking at budget cards spending a few bucks more on the 9000 Pro insured decent memory speeds. WRONG, I just got one that came with 4ns memory chips clocked at 275/250. Luckily it overclocked to 320/275 so it's not too bad. After my initial disappointment I searched their website thoroughly and there is no mention of the 9000 Pro 64MB or 128MB that is clocked at 250MHz for the memory speeds. I wonder if this is approved by ATI, it looks like it cheapens the value of all ATI cards by having a few manufacturers take advantage like this.

 

[Budman]

You're lucky.

My 8500LE came with 5NS ram and was clocked at 250/200.:disgust:

 

[DClark]

Sapphiretech sells a few different versions of the Radeon 9000 Pro, but it's not like they really hide the clock speeds. At the bottom of their Radeon 9000 Pro page, they show what their cards are clocked to and their model numbers. So long as your retailer can tell you which model number(s) they sell, you can find out its exact clock speed.

 

[razor2025]

well, I kinda feel sorry for you all with Sapphires. Good thing I found a Built by ATI card. It has 3.6 ns Infineon that can OC to 300/300 easily.

 

[Audiofight]

My Sapphire Radeon 9100 128MB will arrive on Friday and I will see how slow the memory is on it

I picked it up for a LAN box/file server for our house. The LAN box aspect is for friends who come over with their busted-ass systems that can't play games or for the few that have laptops that aren't capable of gaming.

Most of the parts were donated from friends, so the vid card I bought just to round out the system quite well.

 

[rogue1979]

Retail ATI is always good. I have an 8500 128MB retail that runs a solid 312/306, with Infineon 3.6ns ram.

 

[Blooz1]

I recently received an 8500LE from NewEgg that is clocked at 250/183! It has 5.5Ns ram, so I know the feeling!

BTW, the Sapphire Radeon 8500LE page lists 17 different models of the same card....apparently NewEgg is just lumping them into either "64MB" or 128Mb" catagories, and that's how they're picked for orders with no regard for speeds!

 

[cowdog]

Yep, I have one of those Saphire 8500LEs with slow video RAM. :|
Fortunately, it is still about a gazillion times better than the video card I was using up until this point.
I can't imagine what the high end stuff is like.

I sure hope the latest ATI and nVidia rollout gives me a shot at 9700 pro performance at $200 or less. And I will be much more careful to research my purhcase. It won't be a Saphire card, at least for this next round.

 

[Blooz1]

If I hadn't of already RMA'd one of these cards, and hadn't gone through a 6-hour install, I'd rip it out and return it for something else. This one is also 200% better for gaming than the Matrox it replaced! I do miss the Matrox 2D quality, though....it was teriffic!

I'm debating doing the 9100 BIOS upgrade...reports seem to be mixed as to results,and apparently you can kill a card that way, but for $72......WTH!!!!

Anybody here have any feedback on doing that?

 

[FearoftheNight]

I think Sapp is regulated by ATI on quality on their high end products 9700 and 9500 series. I have a 9500 pro w/ 3.3 infineon ram. GOod stuff.

 

[xSauronx]

Originally posted by: Blooz1
I recently received an 8500LE from NewEgg that is clocked at 250/183! It has 5.5Ns ram, so I know the feeling!

BTW, the Sapphire Radeon 8500LE page lists 17 different models of the same card....apparently NewEgg is just lumping them into either "64MB" or 128Mb" catagories, and that's how they're picked for orders with no regard for speeds!

wow
i got a 8500 sapphire (le) from newegg and it was 250/250
ocs just fine to 275/275, and newegg listed the speed on their page when i bought mine

sorry to hear that, major suckage for you

 

[Eug]

The Sapphire speeds are published right on their website.

The 9100 64 MB is 250/230. Mine came with 3.5 ns EtronTech RAM and it won't overclock past 235 without artifacts.

The 9100 128 is 250/200. It comes with 4 ns RAM (Not EtronTech, but don't remember the brand).

Dunno if my lack of overclockability is due to cheaper RAM, or if they're using very tight memory timings. Maybe a bit of both.

 

[BoberFett]

How can you tell what speed RAM chips are? My PowerColor has Winbond chips and was 183 stock.

 

[chizow]

Originally posted by: BoberFett
How can you tell what speed RAM chips are? My PowerColor has Winbond chips and was 183 stock.

The easy formula is to just divide 1000/Memory Frequency. Inversely, you can can divide 1000/Ram speed in ns to find the theoretical max speed. Its not the exact formula, but it holds true most of the time. In your case its approx 5.5ns.

Chiz

 

[Eug]

Originally posted by: chizow

Originally posted by: BoberFett
How can you tell what speed RAM chips are? My PowerColor has Winbond chips and was 183 stock.

The easy formula is to just divide 1000/Memory Frequency. Inversely, you can can divide 1000/Ram speed in ns to find the theoretical max speed. Its not the exact formula, but it holds true most of the time. In your case its approx 5.5ns.

Chiz

Of course, this is assuming that memory timings are as relaxed as possible. Like I said previously, Sapphire 200 MHz 9100 cards use 4 ns RAM.

 

[Blooz1]

Yeah, my card has Hyundai 5.5Ns chips, which yields the infamous 183!

 

[BoberFett]

Sorry, I was unclear. I understand how to get the speed that it's running at. I'm wondering if there's a way to determine what the factory spec'ed speed of the RAM is vs. what the card maker is actually clocking it at by looking at the part number stamped on the chip.

 

[Eug]

Originally posted by: BoberFett
Sorry, I was unclear. I understand how to get the speed that it's running at. I'm wondering if there's a way to determine what the factory spec'ed speed of the RAM is vs. what the card maker is actually clocking it at by looking at the part number stamped on the chip.

I'm not sure if I understood your question fully, but here goes anyway:

If you mean the ns speed of the chip, it depends on the chip. Mine quite clearly says 3.5 right on the chip. However, the clock speed default from the manufacturer depends on the card firmware. No way to know what speed it will run at simply by looking at the card or its chips. All you can know is that if has 5.5 ns RAM, it ain't gonna be running at 250 MHz.

OTOH, if you have 4 ns RAM, it could be running at 250 MHz, but it also could be running at 200 MHz, depending on the card firmware.

 

[BoberFett]

Originally posted by: Eug

Originally posted by: BoberFett
Sorry, I was unclear. I understand how to get the speed that it's running at. I'm wondering if there's a way to determine what the factory spec'ed speed of the RAM is vs. what the card maker is actually clocking it at by looking at the part number stamped on the chip.

I'm not sure if I understood your question fully, but here goes anyway:

If you mean the ns speed of the chip, it depends on the chip. Mine quite clearly says 3.5 right on the chip. However, the clock speed default from the manufacturer depends on the card firmware. No way to know what speed it will run at simply by looking at the card or its chips. All you can know is that if has 5.5 ns RAM, it ain't gonna be running at 250 MHz.

OTOH, if you have 4 ns RAM, it could be running at 250 MHz, but it also could be running at 200 MHz, depending on the card firmware.

Thanks Eug. I'll look again, but I don't remember seeing a distinct ns rating on the chip. Just a part number. And I didn't see a product identification lookup on Winbonds site. I was just wondering if it's possible that the RAM chips are rated faster by Winbond than what PowerColor was running them at.

 

[chizow]

Originally posted by: BoberFett

Sorry, I was unclear. I understand how to get the speed that it's running at. I'm wondering if there's a way to determine what the factory spec'ed speed of the RAM is vs. what the card maker is actually clocking it at by looking at the part number stamped on the chip.

Thanks Eug. I'll look again, but I don't remember seeing a distinct ns rating on the chip. Just a part number. And I didn't see a product identification lookup on Winbonds site. I was just wondering if it's possible that the RAM chips are rated faster by Winbond than what PowerColor was running them at.

D'oh yah I knew you knew that, sometimes I reply w/out reading the poster name

But yah to further what Eug said and what you are asking, its very possible. That's how those 9700 standards were being clocked to regular pro speeds. The only difference was that they had a different BIOS, which was locked and un-OC'able on the non-pros. Its also how some of the 64MB 9500 non-pros were being clocked to full pro speeds as well. Sometimes its cheaper to differentiate products this way than actually changing the mfg. process.

Anyways, if you can find out the "theoretical" mem frequency from the ns rating on the chips (as you said, not always clear on some chips), then its very possible you have "underclocked" RAM on your card. If that's the case, you could find a hacked BIOS that would allow you to at least OC your card to try the theoretical mem clock speed the RAM is rated at. I WOULD NOT however, flash to a BIOS image of a card which has a default clock speed that is higher than the theoretical rated RAM on your card though. If that happened, you would run the very real risk of effectively killing your card (as it wouldn't boot/work at a default RAM speed that was too high).

Chiz

 

[Eug]

Originally posted by: chizow
I WOULD NOT however, flash to a BIOS image of a card which has a default clock speed that is higher than the theoretical rated RAM on your card though. If that happened, you would run the very real risk of effectively killing your card (as it wouldn't boot/work at a default RAM speed that was too high).

Yep, my 250/230 card is not locked and will overclock. 275 for the core is not a problem at all. However, if I overclock the mem to 275, the card still works, but I get artifacts galore. If I do a bench, I do get faster speeds, meaning it's a "real" overclock, but obviously a screen full of artifacts is useless.

I would hate to have firmware flashed my card to 275/275 only to be saddled with all these problems. And... my RAM is 3.5 ns, which "theoretically" should do 286 MHz. eg. A lot of people have flashed their 9500 cards to 9700 Pros only to get artifacts.

OTOH, I could overclock my 143 MHz Radeon LE (32 MB DDR) to over 190 MHz without artifacts, and to something like 210 MHz before it crashed. I think it had 6 ns RAM if I remember correctly (which is theoretically supposed to max out at 167 MHz). In this case, because I knew what the card could do, I eventually just flashed it to a non-LE Radeon, which is supposed to be 166 MHz I believe.

 

[BoberFett]

Guess I'll just have to do some trial and error. Overclock the RAM and see if that speeds thing up or not.

Thanks guys.

 

[Eug]

Originally posted by: BoberFett
Guess I'll just have to do some trial and error. Overclock the RAM and see if that speeds thing up or not.

Do it gradually, (say in 5-10 MHz increments), and have your overclocking utility set to reset itself to the default speeds with each boot. That way, if you get to a speed that makes your card unusable you can just reboot.

Do NOT lock the your utility's speed until you're 100% sure it's stable and artifact free at that speed.

I have my utility set to do 250/230 (stock) most of the time, but when I launch UT2003 or QIII, it automatically sets my card at 275/234. When I exit the game, it goes back to 250/230.

 

[BoberFett]

From what I'm hearing, if it's BIOS locked then the utility won't do anything. I'll have to figure out if it's locked first. Overclock the RAM 5-10 Mhz at a time and see if it changes. If so, I'm OK. If not, I'm just screwed unless I want to flash the card BIOS, but before I do that I'd want to know what the actual speed of the chips was before I overclock them.

Damn PowerColor. Oh well, they were $72 video cards.

 

[rogue1979]

If your ATI bios is locked, use Atiflash to extract you current bios and then use Radedit to change the clock speeds. Kinda of a long way around to overclock, but it works and you can keep changing until you find the max stable speed.