Radeon 8500stuff

[NewbiePerson]

I think I am just going to go out and buy a 8500 i've been looking at the 7500 for probably 1 or 2 months
and well after considering the price to cool it i've just decided to get a 8500 oem
plus these sites seem to not want me to order over 1 item...
it erases it everytime i try to put another cooling item in oh well
anyways is the oem 8500 at newegg good?
clocked at 230 i think....
thought it was supposed to be at 250mhz
what is the best place to buy one of these cards?
Thanks

[Silversinksam]

I sent in an article I wrote about Radeon 8500 OEM's and retail models, some usefull info.

I can tell you that you should avoid any ODM(oem) that has 230mhz cores and ones that have 4ns Ram.


My OEm was from Royal PC and it did 300/300 right out of the box with powerstrip/

Keep in mind Royal pc has cr@p customer service but apparently they are selling Retail 8500's with an OEM bios.

...At least thats what I got and another guy I know got the same OEM card that was a Retail with an OEM bios.


Read the article I wrote if ED or Joe publish it.

[Cisco Kid]

Originally posted by NewbiePerson
I think I am just going to go out and buy a 8500 i've been looking at the 7500 for probably 1 or 2 months
and well after considering the price to cool it i've just decided to get a 8500 oem
plus these sites seem to not want me to order over 1 item...
it erases it everytime i try to put another cooling item in oh well
anyways is the oem 8500 at newegg good?
clocked at 230 i think....
thought it was supposed to be at 250mhz
what is the best place to buy one of these cards?
Thanks

The 8500 is the better card however I bought a 7500 reatil for $200 Canadian. You can buy em for $100 US that is a flat out deal. They overclock well mine will do 342/281 (mem at 562) thats flat out fast and cheap.

Here is my modded 7500, isay buy retail if you gonna get a 8500 just to make sure.

Cisco Kid

[Cisco Kid]

forgot to mention that here in Vancouver BC Canada the best deal I can get on an OEM 8500 is 315 +tax and I just felt the diff was not worth it.

What are the US oem 8500's going for and the OEM 7500's in the US?? just curious, if the diff is less than 50 get an oem 8500, but I guarantee you would be happy with a 7500 also but get retail.

cisco Kid

Silversinksam looks like he loves his 8500

Cisco Kid:D

[Silversinksam]

Originally posted by Cisco Kid
.



Silversinksam looks like he loves his 8500

Cisco Kid:D


Many people will love the 7500 as well especially if they can get the performance you have gotten Cisco :)

[juliendogg]

i've used both the 7500 and the 8500 (both retail) and imo if you aren't a serious gamer go for the 7500, it does overclock well, i don't remember what i hit with it but i do remember being impressed, and the tv out at 1024x768 is the coolest thing since sliced bread. i was expecting to get that on the 8500 as well but no such luck, it seems it's meant to be just a monster gaming card. i sometimes miss the 7500 enough to wanna build another rig with one just for dvd playback and regular use and just use my 8500 machine for gaming. i do love my 8500. i'm running at 310\300 stock cooling with no artifacts. i'll be adding cooling and ram sinks to it soon but i don't expect to get much further than that without the volt mod everyone is talking about.

[Silversinksam]

juliendogg

Why on earth would you do the voltage mod to a retail card?
IMHO thats pretty foolish as 310/300 is a whole lot better than most.

Check out the Overclockers.com front page for info on the voltage mod tomorrow.

[NewbiePerson]

hhmm
with the posts its become a tough decision
what if i got a Radeon 7500 and added 128mb of ram to my setup?
Would that give me a huge performance boost?
I don't think I'm a extreme gamer, I will go days without playing, then I will play Max Payne for a few hours, Sometimes Serious sam, unreal tournament, don't care much for blackandwhite.
I wana get Ghost recoon, and red faction. I would play Quake3 on the internet but im stuck with 56k so I'm stuck playing starcraft on the internet
I'm pretty sure that my current video card is holding my overclocking back.
I think the 7500 will suit me fine
I got a new magazine, they have the 7500 beating the gf3ti200 in a few benchmarks, also on guru3d in the 8500 article it says that the 7500 is aiming for the gf3ti200
Thanks
Also, cisco did you make those ramsinks or get them from somewhere they look tight, on pricewatch all i could find was the thermaltalke blue ones, and a set of 4 copper ones for $15, also do you hafta use thermal tape to get those to stick? or is there some slim chance that you can use arctic silver?

[NewbiePerson]

Oh yeah by the way
you can pick a oem radeon 8500 up in US for about $190 including shipping
at newegg
on pricewatch the places that had it the cheapest wanted like $20 for shipping....

[Silversinksam]

Those OEM's from Newegg should be avoided like the boobonick {sp} plague.

They advertise them as having a 230mhz core and from what some people are saying they also come with 4ns ram


And At $190 thats no great bargain considering what you may be getting from Newegg. (Newegg is a great vendor, but that card they are selling may be a turkey)

My $186 OEM came from Royal (http://www.goroyalpc.com/no_config_product.asp?m_cat=s_AudioVideo&cat=videocard&action=show&id=570_videocard) and it turned out to be a great card, but as I said earlier its a cr@pshoot when buying an OEM card.

At least Royal has the card @ 250 Core on thier website, they have horrible customer support but as I added an IU cooler to my Radeon the warranty doesnt do me any good anyway as I voided it.

-- EDIT-- ROYAL CHANGED THIER AD FOR THE 8500's they sell

Now they have 3

1 8500 retail with 250 core(I know I know what a scam)
2 8500 OEM 250 core(WHAT I HAVE)
3 8500 OEM LE 230 core

GOOD GRIEF

[NewbiePerson]

Went to nexfan.com
didn't see the cooler you were talking about but i did come across a nice looking cooper cooler similar in size to the blue orb
Evercool Copper VGA Cooler
wonder how it performs....

[Silversinksam]

NewbieP,

How could you miss it? Here it is (http://www.nexfan.com/29/171.htm?457)


They also have this Thermaltake (NOT AN ORB) IU cooler for $13.99

HERE (http://www.nexfan.com/29/244.htm?457)

But I'd go for the OAC copper IU as the Thermaltake has a cruddy c/w rating, the newer Alpha pal 153 iu is in the 80's c/w

And the Alpha pal 15u is 90 c/w but I dont know where the Alpha 153 is sold.

[juliendogg]

Why on earth would you do the voltage mod to a retail card?
IMHO thats pretty foolish as 310/300 is a whole lot better than most.

__________________________________________________ _

what can i say, i'm a freak:D was just an idea, didn't read much on it till last night. don't really even need extra cooling, the back of the gpu barely feels warm looping 3dmark at 310\300 but i'm sure i'll eventually put a better hsf on.
fact remains. i love my 8500:p

[Cisco Kid]

Originally posted by NewbiePerson
hhmm
with the posts its become a tough decision
what if i got a Radeon 7500 and added 128mb of ram to my setup?
Would that give me a huge performance boost?
I don't think I'm a extreme gamer, I will go days without playing, then I will play Max Payne for a few hours, Sometimes Serious sam, unreal tournament, don't care much for blackandwhite.
I wana get Ghost recoon, and red faction. I would play Quake3 on the internet but im stuck with 56k so I'm stuck playing starcraft on the internet
I'm pretty sure that my current video card is holding my overclocking back.

I think the 7500 will suit me fine
I got a new magazine, they have the 7500 beating the gf3ti200 in a few benchmarks, also on guru3d in the 8500 article it says that the 7500 is aiming for the gf3ti200
Thanks
Also, cisco did you make those ramsinks or get them from somewhere they look tight, on pricewatch all i could find was the thermaltalke blue ones, and a set of 4 copper ones for $15, also do you hafta use thermal tape to get those to stick? or is there some slim chance that you can use arctic silver?


Your gaming and use of the card sounds very similar to me. The 7500 will more than meet your needs.

The card was to compete with the G3 Ti200 but it gets beat by the G3 Ti200. The 7500's direct compettiton would be more inline with the Geforce 2 Pro cards/ Geforce 2 Ultras and the newly named G2 Ti200. When overclocked as mine is the 7500 posts results = to and in some cases better than a Geforce 2 Ultra.

My ramsinks came from www.amkcomputer.com. They were then cut into pieces with 3 fins on each and I used ASII between them and the ram. 2 tiny dabs of superglue was used to attach them and I added a Crystal Orb as well covering the gpu with ASII as well.

The card has provided awesome overclocking potential and I have not used TV out yet but I will as it supports 1024x768 as mentioned by one of the above posts. The 7500 is a deal at $100 US and will last you a good long enough before you will need another one.

Most retail 7500's will do 340/540 which is a great overclock.

Go with your gut grab a 7500, it is cheap and decent card $60-70 less than a G3Ti200 and about the same less than an OEM 8500. Then you got extra cash left over for other goodies. ie) additional stick of ram will benefit you bigtime especially since it is so cheap.

Cisco Kid

[NewbiePerson]

How does this oem from zbuy look
Radeon 7500 OEM Original ATI Card 64MB Ddr AGP4X TV-Out DVI-Out OEM 1-year dealer warranty Also it ends up about $114
the newegg was out of their $108
Or should I pay about $7 extra and get the dual display the card looks so little im not sure if I can get ramsinks on it

[Cisco Kid]

Here is your best bet


http://www.pricewatch.com/

You can get an OEM 7500 ( I believe the speed is the same as retail but you do not get much else in box but driver and cables if I am correct)for $100 + $14 for shipping = $114

www.newegg.com has ATI Retail 7500 for $108 plus $5 for Fedex shipping = $113 that would be my choice, you call it though. (oops see that you said they are out, goes to show it is the best deal, I would just order and wait.

Also it does not matter if card is OEM or retail the ram is the same size, you won;t have any probs getting heatsinks onto them.

I have also been told by a guy who reviewed the 7500 that I contacted about doing a review on overclocking the 7500 as saying that some of the newer 7500's have 3.6- 3.8 ns Hynix ram. I just figured mine had 4ns ram but I never looked, I may have to remove a ramsink just to check. That would be way cool!!!

Also all 7500's retail or OEM in the 64 DDR version support dual monitor

Cisco Kid:cool:

[NewbiePerson]

yeah I saw something about that
I think at rage3d.com forums
looked pretty cool
whelp i ordered everything same orb thing you got
for a total of $140 including shipping....
somehow I don't feel good about it
but im getting about $140 of interest on a cd i have so i guess its all good

[Cisco Kid]

Dude you will be more than happy with the card compared to your LE.

I was and I upgraded from a Radeon 64 DDR vivo that I had for like 2 mths that ran at 245/490. It was sweet but I wanted newer, only thing I miss the vivo feature..:( Here is a pic of my modded 64 DDR vivo

Did ya go retail?? and where ya order from?

Cisco Kid:cool:

[juliendogg]

7500 is a great card. i miss mine. imo go retail if you can. you can find good deals and it'd be worth the little extra to know what your getting.

[palomino_n00b]

my oem Radeon 8500 from newegg came at 250/250 with the 3.6ns Hynix ram

[NewbiePerson]

I'm embarased to say now
LOL, in the reader review they had at newegg a few people said you can't tell the difference between oem and retail...
but i guess they didn't overclock...
oh well, i got the $115 one and comes to $120 shipping...
the cheapest retail that I could find anywhere was like $150 with shipping.....
You guys probably find a lot cheaper but oh well
I think I will be happy with it, can hardly wait... to bad it won't be here til next week probably
I'm like %100 positive that this will allow me to overclock my fsb higher, im going to do some mad tweaking over the holidays..
going to unlock my processor, replace the silicon paste with arctic silver, format my hard drive, and some other stuff...
my 3dmark will be kicking hopefully

[Vovan]

I just know that EVERYTHING that come from ATi in OEM is slower and is already clocked-to-the-max.:cool:



P.S.
Anyway, everything that comes in a box is superb.:p

[NewbiePerson]

If that is the case do they have a thing where you can flash the bios on a 7500 oem to a regular 7500?????

[Vovan]

Can help. If not , you will have A LOT OF PROBLEMS with reflashing the not-working-card´s BIOS! Attention should pe paid for your card and new-bios Memory clock specs.:)