Radeon 8500 vs. Radeon 8500LE - difference?

[directhex]

the 9000 is NOT based on 8500 tech. the 8500, 8500le, 9100 and 9200 have the same (R200) core, more or less. the 9000 has its own core (R250), based very very heavily on the gamecube graphics chip - the upside of which is the 9000 has (more or less) a proper pixel shader and the 9100/9200 do not.

That said, R250 is not as fast in absolute terms as R200, hence an 8500 will outperform it in most applications. The 9000 was designed as a GF4MX beater, the 8500 as a GF3Ti beater

--jo

[Lexeus]

Originally posted by Austin
3Dmark2001SE only needs DX8 installed and preferably with a DX8 gfx card (like Rad9000PRO). It's 3Dmark03 (2003) that reqs DX9 and preferably a DX9 gfx card. For reference in 3Dmark2001SE an FX5200 (stock 250-400) with XP2500+ scores 5600 while an XP2000+ with GF4TI4200 (250-444) scores 10000.

I don't mean 3dmark2001 needs dx9 installed, i mean i need dx9 installed , and i cant run 3dmark 2001 because I have dx9 installed

[directhex]

http://www20.tomshardware.com/graphi...charts-02.html might help.

[directhex]

Originally posted by Lexeus
I don't mean 3dmark2001 needs dx9 installed, i mean i need dx9 installed , and i cant run 3dmark 2001 because I have dx9 installed

3dmark 2001 patch 330 fixes that, along with other fixes (correctly detects SiS Xabre capabilities).

it's been out a couple of years now...

[Austin]

directhex (unless I'm severely mistaken) the 9000 and 9200 are the same technology, the 9200 simply offers AGP8x which is well known to be pointless and unnecessary even on top end cards. The PRO versions of these cards are much faster (275/275 vs 250/200 IIRC). The 9100, 8500 and 8500LE are superior and essentially the same as each other with the only diffs being clock speeds, 9100=250/200 8500LE=250/250 8500=275/275 but clocks speeds can vary quite dramaticly on these (eg Crucial's 8500LE=230/166). Even so most 8500LE are still faster than the 9100 which was intended to be a return to the 8500 after people were so disappointed (and misled) by the 9000 series. The 9000PRO (and I therefore assume 9200PRO) are still a fair bit slower than the 8500LE but generally closer than the 9100 actually are. As a side note it is not only clock speeds which can kill perf, some cards can come with 64bitDDR (vs 128bitDDR) and I therefore assume 128bitSDR but they are VERY rare.

Scupa if you get an 8500 clocked at 275/275 or even 250/250 you will have perf roughly equal to a GF3TI500 which is just below a GF4TI4200. That's certainly fast enough to play most games very well but will become pretty limiting with the latest games, certainly if you get a 64MB one. 4200 do scale better with CPU speed (ie keep gaining speed from) so are the preferred choice. It wouldn't be wise to buy a 64MB card unless you will be content to play only current or preferably older games.

[directhex]

my mistake, the 9200 is indeed a haxed 9000 - but they're still unrelated to the 9100/8500

[Austin]

ATI make everyone's head spin. I think to put it simply (in terms of perf) the Rad8500/8500LE offer perf near GF4TI4200 while the 9000PRO, 9100 and 9200PRO offer perf around a GF3TI200. Finally the Rad9000 and 9200 offer perf around a GF4MX (ie slowest) except you do get DX8.1 (vs DX7). It is reported that ATI will be producing a Rad9600SE (9600 with 64bitDDR vs the usual 128bitDDR) to fill the gap the 9000-9200 fill so badly, it will probably be similar to the GF-FX5200 which means you should get GF3TI200 type speeds but with DX9 and good AA+AF although it will be too slow for those to be of much use.

That is of course presuming all the above are clocked where they should be!

[Lexeus]

Austin, according to the Powercolor website, their Radeon 9000Pro 64mb card does use 128bit DDR

http://www.powercolor.com.tw/page2/p...&sn=37&temp1=7

I don't think they can lie on their own site. It would be mis-leading the customers.

[Austin]

I know 100% that a few consumers found their Rad9000PRO cards to possess 64bitDDR, they were very disappointed. It was after me telling people that the 9000 series had ended the poor consistency of the Radeon cards, I had pointed out that factoring in the variance evident in 8500LE the 9000PRO was not far behind at all and at least you knew what you were getting (so I thought).

I think it's certain that not all Powercolor 9000PRO cards used 64bitDDR, many manu's produce at least 4 different variants of each chipset so maybe only 1 of them used 64bitDDR. With the 9000 series being superceded by the samey 9100 & 9200 series it could be that ATI only offer 2 variants of 9000PRO where before they offered more (inc one quietly using 64bitDDR). Maybe some retailer got a job lot of 9000PRO's destined for the less fussy Asian markets (where 9800SE and RadeonVE were intended for) and those used 64bitDDR, who knows?

Another possibility is that Powercolor have just copied and pasted ATI's official specs from 9000 series release, many 4200_128MB echoed 500mhz DDR (or relative bandwidth) even though they came with 444mhz DDR, the manu's website guys had obviously just copied and pasted specs of the 4200 not bothering to factor in that clock speeds varied between the 64MB and 128MB (upon 4200's release). It is not uncommon for manu's sites to mis-quote things (I've seen it many times) and very common for them to be very careful exactly how things are worded (or that the info is there as a rough guide only and not guaranteed).

The 9000PRO's internal structure isn't 128bit is it? That would cater for why they say...

Chipset
* RADEON 9000PRO
Support Memory/bandwidth
* 64MB DDR SDRAM
* 128 bit (possibly meaning 128bit internal archy as opposed to 128bit RAM perhaps?)

... as opposed to the more usual '64MB 128bit DDR SDRAM'?