What's so super about the Super Radeon 8500

[concreteDonkey]

I'm looking into upgrading my graphics card to a Radeon 8500, there's just one problem:

ATI are selling it at about £222 (about $310) but I found a european manufacturer called Super Grace selling their Radeon 8500 for $175 (about $245). There's got to be something in it surely!?!

Super don't say much about their card apart from: "ATI RADEON 8500LE AGP VGA (64MB) (DUAL DISPLAY) (DVI & TV OUT)" (check it out at www.supergrace.com)

Can somebody please tell me why there is a fifty quid difference? I am quite new to the video card market so go easy on me if the answer is obvious!

 

[Theslowone]

The more expensive one is the retail and the cheaper one is the oem or le version. From what I have read and experienced, the le is clocked 25 mhz slower core and mem. And you don't get the connector that allows you to have two analog monitors hooked up at once. Other then that I haven't seen any difference.

 

[Daovonnaex]

<< The more expensive one is the retail and the cheaper one is the oem or le version. From what I have read and experienced, the le is clocked 25 mhz slower core and mem. And you don't get the connector that allows you to have two analog monitors hooked up at once. Other then that I haven't seen any difference. >>

The LE is clocked at 230/250 I believe, the OEM is 250/250, and the retail is 275/275. I could be wrong on the OEM's mem clock. The LE is quite poor...it also has slower RAM (4.5ns, I believe). The retail comes with 3.6ns, and the OEM withe 3.6ns, 3.8ns, or 4 ns.

 

[Innoka]

I know of Supergrace from digitlife where the review of their 8500 was favorable. They use ATI factories according to themselves. This is strange because information on them is very scant. I do wonder however if their nvidia cards are made from quality parts as well because they are the cheapest I've seen- what memory are they using. Look at Joytech Radeons to see where corners get cut.

 

[vss1980]

I've used the SuperGrace Radeon 8500. It is indeed a Radeon 8500 LE card (using core clock of 250/250).
My brother got one of the early ones and hence it is an ATi card (made by ATi, sold by SuperGrace) and even sports 3.6ns memory just like the real non-LE 8500 cards (I doubt you will get these any more).

 

[Alex]

exactly what everybody else said... ones by ati the other is powered by ati...

theire by 3rd party manufacturers and are slower and well just not totally ati if ya know what i mean... personally id go for the ati cuz if ya spening that many quid P) ya might as well spend a couple more...

and if ya gonna be cheap about it then get a geforce3ti200

 

[concreteDonkey]

Aaaaaah, so it was quite obvious! Anyway thanks for the help.

 

[Theslowone]

ok here is what i have found
oem is the same thing as le
it is 250mhz core/mem
but there is a weaker model that is lele wich is at 230mhz core wich is also a oem, and not made by ati.

 

[nRollo]

This whole thing is iilustrative of ATIs seriously whacked out speed binning and card crippling:
"No! You have the model 7200 LE OEM! That has one pipeline disabled, HyperZ disabled by drivers, the core clocked 44 MHz slower and the RAM 16MHz slower!"
For this reason alone, ATI deserves to be #2.

 

[vss1980]

This whole thing is iilustrative of ATIs seriously whacked out speed binning and card crippling:
"No! You have the model 7200 LE OEM! That has one pipeline disabled, HyperZ disabled by drivers, the core clocked 44 MHz slower and the RAM 16MHz slower!"

And so your saying nobody else does it? Please tell me cos its obviously different with nvidia but nobody else has spotted it. Obviously the GF2 MX isn't a GF2 with half the pipelines. I suppose there is also no speed binning with nvidia and that all those cards with Ultra in the name were actually identical cards running with modified BIOS or drivers.

Yeah, ATI is seriously whacked

ATI have opened up most of their chips to OEM vendors now with no restrictions. You can get Radeon SDR/DDR/VE cards not made by ATI any more. Hell, you can even get a Rage mobility based graphics card (definitely not meant for use outside of laptops by ATI, but hey OEM's can do whatever).

 

[AA0]

You really need to look into those 3rd party cards, its amazing what they will do to save a buck. The bigger companies look to be making them right, but some of the smaller ones are using SD RAM, at very crippling speeds, makes the cards a lot cheaper.

 

[Soccerman]

all I know is that I'd rather go with a card made by ATi so that I can be assured of their 2D quality...

"No! You have the model 7200 LE OEM! That has one pipeline disabled, HyperZ disabled by drivers, the core clocked 44 MHz slower and the RAM 16MHz slower!"

and now we have:

'NO you have a Geforce 4 MX which is only a DX7 part but with GF3 memory management..'

where's the GF4?

how many version of this MX are going to be released btw? 3? are they all DDR? 128 bit mem?

 

[nRollo]

I agree nVidia does this as well, but it seems easier to track with them.
The disabled hyper Z thing was very weird. The Radeon didn't have the performance to lose one of it's two pipelines.
Yeah MXs suxors, but you know everything with an MX in the name suxors. You have to be Rain Man to remember ATIs conglomeration of model numbers and letters, and what they signify.

 

[Theslowone]

It is a marketing scheme that all the manufactuers use to make their cards sound good enought to buy, we as consumers have to be smart enough to look past the bull sh!t and find what will work for us. These cards are out for a reason, for everyone will not pay 300 bucks on a new card, when the tnt2 and then later the geforce first came out there wasn't much of a choice; it went tnt2 then pro then ultra, then when geforce sdr and ddr came out it was a little better but both cards were over 200 bucks. Now they have a large array of cards out from 100 to 300, and more or less fits all of the gamers needs, and we complain on how they market it? I am just glad they have cheaper cards that we can buy and oc. Yes it would be nice if they had the disabilities of cards more apparent but would you buy a ati radeon that was label ati radeon 8500 slow and crippled?

 

[tazdevl]

<< This whole thing is iilustrative of ATIs seriously whacked out speed binning and card crippling:
"No! You have the model 7200 LE OEM! That has one pipeline disabled, HyperZ disabled by drivers, the core clocked 44 MHz slower and the RAM 16MHz slower!"
For this reason alone, ATI deserves to be #2. >>



ATI has always played the OEM game very well. Those specific features that are added or missing are generally requested by an OEM. Meaning it was designed for a specific purpose/company. If you buy an OEM, what do you expect? Could be set up for HP, Compaq, Dell, whoever. Also, retailers don't necessarily get things set up well on their websites because they are in such a rush to sell cards.

I agree that ATI should get their binning and naming conventions set up prior to a launch. Managing customer expectation and communication more effectively is something they are beginning to focus on.

What most people don't understand is that they are in the midst of a pretty major organizational change... several new members of Sr. Mgmt, including the President. These things take time and don't happen overnight. Anyone who's had a job in a company that was undergoing major changes can tell you. Given the new CEO's background... SGI... I'll bet by the next launch, things will be quite different.

The 8500 is my first ATI card, hasn't been a bad experience. I can't believe I'm defending ATI, I'm an nVIDIOT.

I also agree with soccerman... nVIDIA is starting to get fairly complex with their product lineup.

Oh... to answer... Super Radeon 8500 is an AIB/ODM. They take ATI chips and smack them into a card of their own design, similar model to nVIDIA. I would just buy an ATI branded card, don't know what the AIB/ODM designed in. Before anyone can fly off the hoop about differences in image quality etc... nVIDIA AIB's do the same thing. Ever looked @ 2D between a Gainward and Hercules/Asus? Gainward is much better. Why? They add in better RF filtering to improve 2D. Same situation with ATI vs Super.