O/C'ing a Radeon VE worth the trouble?

[JzAr]

I have a Radeon VE which doesn't even come with a fan on it, only has a black ceramic heatsink. Has anyone had any success trying to overclock this card? And if you had what kind of cooling do you recomend? Thanx

P.S. This is just untill I save up my money to buy a 8500

[Pinky]

Beware of overclocking any video cards that donh't have active (fan) cooling!!

With that said, radeon cards tend to run a bit cooler than nvidia, so some gains could be seen. User powerstrip or radeon tweaker available through the link in my signature below.

[Angry]

What exactly is the Radeon VE?

[JzAr]

For those of you who don't know what a Radeon VE is here's a link: http://www.ati.com/na/pages/products/pc/radeon_ve/index.html

[JzAr]

well since I had "soo many replies to my thread" I went ahead and downloaded R3D Tweak and overclocked my vid card to 202.5/202.5 stock was at 182.3/182.3 is this good? It hasn't frozen up or done anything funny. Oh yea I didn't even put a fan or extra sinks on it. One of my case colling fans hits it pretty good.
Should I go for more speed and put some sinks on it or what?
Ill be patiently waiting for your replies:D

AMD T-Bird 1133mhz @ 1400mhz (140x10) 45c full load
Soyo Dragon Plus 256mb corsair pc2400
Maxtor 45Gig 7200rpm
Cendyne DVD 16x40x
TDK veloCD 24x10x40x
ATi Radeon VE (8500 comin soon)
SBPCI512(Audigy comin soon)

[Cisco Kid]

Originally posted by JzAr
well since I had "soo many replies to my thread" I went ahead and downloaded R3D Tweak and overclocked my vid card to 202.5/202.5 stock was at 182.3/182.3 is this good? It hasn't frozen up or done anything funny. Oh yea I didn't even put a fan or extra sinks on it. One of my case colling fans hits it pretty good.
Should I go for more speed and put some sinks on it or what?
Ill be patiently waiting for your replies:D

AMD T-Bird 1133mhz @ 1400mhz (140x10) 45c full load
Soyo Dragon Plus 256mb corsair pc2400
Maxtor 45Gig 7200rpm
Cendyne DVD 16x40x
TDK veloCD 24x10x40x
ATi Radeon VE (8500 comin soon)
SBPCI512(Audigy comin soon)

Nice overclock try for a tiny bit more you will know if you pushed it too much.

Then run 3D Mark2K1 to see how much your score improves from default setting.

Cisco kid;)

[daddyloy]

I also own a radeon ve and I think its a lemon I hope you guys keep off this card! I tried Power strip no help.

[Zuck Gou :)]

Originally posted by daddyloy
I also own a radeon ve and I think its a lemon I hope you guys keep off this card! I tried Power strip no help.

Your right, its the lemon of the Radeon family for sure.

[JzAr]

Well I managed to successfully o/c the Radeon VE to 207(mem)/211.5(GPU) with no extra cooling. My 3DMark2001 score is 2404. Is this good or bad? Oh yea, one more thing, what is usually set higher when o/c'ing a vid card. The GPU clock speed or the Memory clock speed?



AMD T-Bird 1133mhz @ 1400mhz (140x10) 45c full load
Soyo Dragon Plus 256mb corsair pc2400
Maxtor 45Gig 7200rpm
Cendyne DVD 16x40x
TDK veloCD 24x10x40x
ATi Radeon VE (8500 comin soon)
SBPCI512(Audigy comin soon)

[Tracert]

Do you have the OEM or Retail version of the VE card?

[JzAr]

Its Retail

[panagiotis]

Which VE do you have? 32MB DDR or 64MB DDR??

the 64DDR cannot work over 170/170 using power strip

[stymee]

I had a chance to compare a TNT2 Ultra (old, I know) with a VE64 on the same system, and while I don't remember the exact numbers, the TNT2 was right there with the VE (OUCH!).

I've read that its a good card for "business apps" and has good dual head support but is an absolute dog when it comes to anything 3D related (especially gaming). Even A Geforce2 MX will smoke that thing.

I have one layin' around, I'm thinking about making a keychain out of the GPU.

[JzAr]

Its the 32mb DDR. But know that I switched over from WinME to XP heres my successful o/c=207/189 with no extra sinks or fan. My 3dmark went down to 2310 also. Im using the latest beta drivers(6.13.10.6011). Anyone know why the score went down. I thought XP was supposed to be better.

[Tracert]

I too have a Radeon VE 32MB DDR (5.5ns), it cost me $47.00 (it's OEM) plus $7 SH. I don't play all that much 3D games but do use Direct 3D often (in AOEII) in which the Radeon VE actually does better then a MX.

Although it is true, IMHO, a MX card will beat the crap out of this card in most 3D benchmarks, there are a few that the VE is better at. As far as TNT2 vrs VE, I think the TNT2 cards were- and still are a great product. In the benchmarks I have seen, the TNT2 will come close to VE but in 32bit at higher res, the VE will start pulling quite ahead of the older card.

I wanted something that had good 2D quality and TV out with built in DVD but still could handle any game I gave it. This fit the bill and cost was easy to swallow. The fact that I can put two monitors on it was added gravy. The balance that ATI found with this card was exactly right for me. One of the best "bang for the buck" card I have ever bought.

If your interested in more info on this card here are a couple of good articles.

http://www.anandtech.com/showdoc.html?i=1421
http://www6.tomshardware.com/graphic/01q1/010316/index.html

[DManeKid]

y is every1 interested in two monitors?

[Tracert]

Power Strip doesn't seem to work with this card. I will be trying Radeon Tweaker and see how it goes.

Does anyone know where I can get a Flash program and Rom Image for the Retail version of this Card? I got a feeling that the Flash program for the Radeons will prob work but I still need a retail image. Any help would be welcomed.

[Pinky]

I suggest contacting silversinksam, he's the man with bios/rom goods for video cards... :)

[Silversinksam]

Pinky and Tracert,

I uploaded the Flash files to your Pinky's Linky's

I also Have a different one that you can customize.

I'll upload that one as well in a moment

[Pinky]

Cool, but I won't be able to move it until I get home/online later (currently at work)...

If you have a link that would be more useful to tracert now... :)

[Tracert]

Pinky,

What do you do for work? I work for a small company as the Network Admin / MIS manager.

[Pinky]

Originally posted by Tracert
Pinky,

What do you do for work? I work for a small company as the Network Admin / MIS manager.

VERY large company, help desk work.

Here's your links:

http://www.aoafiles.com/dafiles/Video_Card_Files/ATI_Video_Cards/Radeon_ROM_Images/bios_flashrom.zip

but I don't know this is the rom you need, but it does have the flash app included...

[Tracert]

I did some work with ocing my VE and... Wow. This little thing was begging me for it.

166Mhz Memory (stupid OEM's are slower then retail) up to 184.3, I can go higher with this, much higer, but it will start producing artifacts so I stop here.

The story with the core is even better. 166 Mhz to 200Mhz. This little guy oced like a good boy should. I think I could go more with better cooling but that is for another time if I want to take the time (I may end up buying an OEM 8500).

Now for the driver settings. I use the drivers from Madonion's web site which is the 6032 Beta drivers & Rage 3D Tweak. The trick, at least for my machine, was to leave everything alone from install except for the core and Mem Mhz.

Order went like this. Install drivers (don't touch any settings). Install Rage 3D Tweak. Go to overclock and only touch the Mhz. I learned this the hard way and ended up uninstalling and installing 3 times to make sure I was right. Even if you click the little "default" button it will change a setting somewhere that will cause worse performance. One thing I noticed was the memory latency was show as ??? but after hitting default button it would say something like normal. Even trying any setting wouldn't help but just make the card less stable. But with a fresh install and no changes, you I get much better results. Let me know if anyone else notices this.

When I first started I was getting scores in the low 1100's OCing my card put it on par with a MX200 for my system at 1363.

[AarontheJC]

My engine went further than my memory on my 8500LE. Read up on the new 128MB 8500s that just came out before you buy. They might be worth a shot. I started a thread and hopefully some people who have them will reply.