I bought Radeon 8500 OEM, now what?

[mrsambo12]

:(

I bought an ATI Radeon 8500 OEM, the one that runs at 230mhz. Now I am reading that this is junk! Now what do I do? Will I get good performance from this card if I Overclock??? I am very disappointed. My system Specs are below, what 3dmark2001 scores do you think I could obtain using the Radeon I purchased?
I want to run all the latest games and near future ones at the best settings! I want performance!

Abit KR7A-R with 256 MB DDR 2.0 case memory
Athlon xp 1700+ overclocked to 1595mhz (145 x 11)
Maxtor atx 133 20g HD
Lots of extra cooling.

Thanks for any help/advice :beer:

[{PMS}fishy]

I have a Radeon 8500 oem as well, go download powerstrip and o/c that bad boy. Mine is running at 275/275 which is what the retail ones run at. With better cooling I know I can go higher. I need more voltage for the Gpu though it gets artifacts at 280. I have gotten the mem up to 315 before artifacts but it too needs more coolings, as the the aftifacts don't happen for a few mins while the memory heats up and begins to crap out. Also look at the number on the mem chips. They had 3.4ns memory and 4.0ns, that makes a difference too in the clockablility of the card.

Ive gotten 81xx scores in 3dmark01 with 275/275 you should be able to break 8000 no problem.

[slim_lim]

Well, since you *already* purchased it, why don't you try it out and see if it's really junk or not. What do you care what others say: make up your own judgement.

[AarontheJC]

I'll post my scores for you with my 8500LE OEM that I got online. I overclocked it all the way to 290/574 without problems. I added a cooling kit that I got from 2cooltek.com and that took my temps down a bit. I'll post my full results with report on my experience in upcoming days. Watch out for it!

[TranceBear]

You have a great card there! Maybe it is not the best version, but you will whoop all over most GF3's right now at 230mhz. There is a volt mod to do but you risk ruining your card.

[Starfoxer]

i think powerstrip would be the safe way to go