wth is a radeon 9100

[xSauronx]

ive heard all over the place that its just a renamed 8500 since ati realized they could still easily sell a fair number of the radeon 8500's....is it just a renamed 8500? or it a slightly improved 8500? anyone know? a search for "radeon 9100" on google bring up virtually nothing in the english language...and im lazy tonight, so someone show off some linkage or something about this

 

[SickBeast]

seeing as i flashed my 8500 with a 9100 bios, THEY ARE THE SAME THING!!

the only thing the 9100 has extra is the "fullstream" technology that i have yet to try out.

good fast cards tho. not cutting edge anymore but still a great value.

 

[tenoc]

It's an 8500le with a newer bios.

The new bios can be applied to 8500s.

Did mine, not much difference in performance (none actually).

Probably the reason for the renaming is that the 8500/9100 out performs the 9000.

 

[xSauronx]

thats what i thought...like i said, couldnt find anything out about it and was curois, since i have an 8500le myself

anyway, im not about to try a bios flash, last time i tried that i fuxored my card (not that it worked right as it was....)
thanks guys

 

[AnAndAustin]

The 9100 is ATI's attempt to 'amke things better' after the Rad9000 series was shown to be largely inferior to the Rad8500 series, so they essentially just rereleased the 8500 as 9100. I don't know of any firm details but I'd still get an 8500 (inc LE) while they're still going, just be sure to verfiy clock speeds and dual RAMDACs (if you're into dual display). 8500LE clocks shouldn't dip below 230/230, oh and do look foir a 128MB ver as it's well worth it on the 8500 series (and I assume the 9100 too).

 

[lizard345]

Most sites don't seem to be telling you if it has duel ramdac's so how would you make sure?

 

[bolomite]

As if I wasn't already confused enough about ATI's numbering...

 

[Eug]

Originally posted by: AnAndAustin
do look foir a 128MB ver as it's well worth it on the 8500 series (and I assume the 9100 too).

Get a 128 MB and you risk SLOWER performance, for a higher price.

eg. The Sapphire 64 MB is clocked at 250/230 (3.5 ns RAM). The Sapphire 128 MB is clocked at 250/200 (4 ns RAM).

 

[AnAndAustin]

Yeah but from all of ATI's partners who produce a Rad9100 and specify clocks the Sapphire is the only one to firstly use such slow clocks and secondly to clock the 128MB card slower. Any Rad9100 should be a better buy than Rad9000PRO, but diffs aren't that huge.

 

[Eug]

Originally posted by: AnAndAustin
Yeah but from all of ATI's partners who produce a Rad9100 and specify clocks the Sapphire is the only one to firstly use such slow clocks and secondly to clock the 128MB card slower. Any Rad9100 should be a better buy than Rad9000PRO, but diffs aren't that huge.

Some of the Powercolors use 250/183.

 

[Wag]

the only thing the 9100 has extra is the "fullstream" technology that i have yet to try out.

Nah- seeing the 8500 can do Fullstream it has nothing to do with hardware- just software. I'm fairly certain the new version of Realplayer has Fullstream enabled (the downloadable one) because it's all glitchy on my 8500/9100 under Dx9- and Fullstream has problems with Dx9.

The forthcoming 9200 will be a 8500 w/8x AGP.

 

[AnAndAustin]

I had a look at this a couple of weeks ago and things may have changed, anyway here's the info:

According to PowerColor website (part of CP Tech) - http://www.cptech.com.tw/powercolor/web/product_inside.asp?prd_id=RADEON9100 - it has an unknown/unreleased core speed but the RAM is at 250mhz DDR.

And for the other ATI partners who sport Rad9100 cards we see the following:

Connect3D - http://www.connect3d.com/products/products_radeon_9100.htm - 250/240
Gigabyte - http://www.giga-byte.com/products/agp_index.htm - 64MB & 128MB ver but no mention of clocks
Joytech (Apollo) - http://www.joytech.com/apollo9100.htm - no mention of clocks BUT "Memory Configurations:128MB/64MB with fastest DDR memory"
Sapphire (Triton) - http://www.sapphiretech.com/vga/9100.asp - 64MB=250/230 & 128MB=250/200
Unitech - http://www.unitech-na.com/ - *** site is down ***

Other ATI partners who don't (didn't) do Rad9100:

Elsa - www.elsa.de - no Rad9100
FIC - www.fic.com.tw - no Rad9100
Hercules (Guillemot) - http://europe.hercules.com/index_products.php?t=1 - no Rad9100
High Tech - http://www.hightech.com.hk/html/VGA.htm - no Rad9100
Jetway - http://www.jetway.com.tw/evisn/index.html - no Rad9100
Supergrace (Super) - http://www.supergrace.com/OurProducts.asp?CategoryID=2 - no Rad9100
Tyan - http://www.tyan.com/products/html/graphics_cards.html - no Rad9100
Visiontek - www.visiontek.com - closed (no longer producing)
Wistron - http://www.wistron.com/index.html - no Rad9100
Xelo - www.xelo.net - no Rad9100
Yuan - http://www.yuan.com.tw/ - no Rad9100

I'm curious if the Rad9200 is going to be a true rebadged Rad8500 with useless AGP8x support or whether we'll see such huge and important variance in clock speeds.

 

[Eug]

Originally posted by: AnAndAustin

According to PowerColor website (part of CP Tech) - http://www.cptech.com.tw/powercolor/web/product_inside.asp?prd_id=RADEON9100 - it has an unknown/unreleased core speed but the RAM is at 250mhz DDR.

Maybe for the retail, but I know that people have gotten OEM Powercolor cards with 250/183.

My OEM 64 MB Sapphire 9100 card was the same 250/230 as the retail. Despite the 3.5 ns memory, it only overclocks to about 235 though (with zero artifacts - faster if you accept a few artifacts). ie. basically not at all. I wonder if it's because they use very aggressive memory timings.

YMMV.

Visiontek - www.visiontek.com - closed (no longer producing)

Visiontek is still around and the memory is 250 for both the 64 and the 128 MB according to the website. (That's for the retail version, but I dunno about OEM).

However, their lame ads alone would keep me away from Visiontek.

 

[AnAndAustin]

It's a good job that ATI have kept things VERY consistent on the Rad9500 series and up (also inc Rad9000PRO) because Rad8500/9100 will never achieve significant market penetration with such a disgusting and downright mis-leading variance in abilities and clock speeds. Plus the newer cards are now reasonably priced outside US & Canada, the Rad8500 were always rediculously priced and then there was always the concern over huge variance in manu too. It is VERY disappointing that ATI haven't kept things consistent for the Rad9100 and I expect the Rad9200 will meet the same fate ... maybe nVidia will be able to retake the lower end of the market if this is what ATI do to the consumers ...

 

[Eug]

Originally posted by: AnAndAustin
It's a good job that ATI have kept things VERY consistent on the Rad9500 series and up (also inc Rad9000PRO) because Rad8500/9100 will never achieve significant market penetration with such a disgusting and downright mis-leading variance in abilities and clock speeds. Plus the newer cards are now reasonably priced outside US & Canada, the Rad8500 were always rediculously priced and then there was always the concern over huge variance in manu too. It is VERY disappointing that ATI haven't kept things consistent for the Rad9100 and I expect the Rad9200 will meet the same fate ... maybe nVidia will be able to retake the lower end of the market if this is what ATI do to the consumers ...

I totally disagree.

Quite frankly the hardcore gamer market is very small market, and its not interested in the 9100 anyway. The 9100 is aimed for the average person, and the sad fact of it is that most average people wouldn't have a clue about memory speeds.

And in fact, I don't at all blame the card makers for this. OEM cards are just that. OEM cards. If you want to be guaranteed top speeds in a class of card, I don't think it's unreasonable to expect to pay retail box prices.

Now if you're an AnandTecher, things are different, but we are often not representative of the general public. We post OEM speeds, etc. here to help our fellow AnandTechers.

Even with the 9500 series of cards there are differences. Some can be modded to higher levels, and some use better quality memory than others (even if they do run at the same speed).

That said, I do agree that Powercolor has gone a bit extreme in the memory dept. While 230 isn't bad for an OEM card with the Sapphire (considering that it's the same speed as their retail), 183 with the Powercolor is really cutting corners, esp. when their retail card is 250.

 

[videobruce]

I'm looking at the 9500pro, 9000pro and the 9100. I really don't want to spend $200 for the 9500pro (if I could find one), but I am worried about getting one of these 9100's or the 9000pro after reading this thread and other reviews. If I could get a retail 9500pro for $160 or so I wouldn't be writing this.

All of this might be picky, but I feel $200 is a bit much knowing that the price of the card will fall to this amount in 6 to 9 months anyway. I have a problem with a GeForce2 card now that I or Asus can't resolve regarding the capture function (capture programs are not reconizing the card correctly) and I want to be sure it's not a MB problem. The card worked ok in the old MB, but this is a new chipset, so I don't know if that is the issue or something else.

I'm mostly concerned about TV out and preformance in that order. I want 1024x768 with sizing (or scaling if you wish) in both directions and I'm not sure if these cards do it.

Anyone with any of these cards confirm this? This would be NTSC.

 

[magomago]

BUMP!

Same here...TVOUT and then preformance.

But at 1024*768???? Unless its a HDTV you'll prolly get extended desktop and I know the 8500 is limited at 800*600 on that, but the 7500 can do 1024*768