Announcement

**woel** · 30 November 2001, 05:03

Please :-)

Someone must know anything about the Asus K7M AMD 750 chipset and powerful graphic cards like the Radeon 8500.

I would really like to know so I don't order something that won't work in my computer.

Please!!

/Leo

**Novdid** · 30 November 2001, 05:13

It should work.

**woel** · 30 November 2001, 08:38

cool!

Thanx!
Now there's only the money issue :-)

**dwright** · 30 November 2001, 18:33

I have an asus a7m266 (512mb ddr) amd1700xp(retail) with ati radeon8500(oem) running winxp pro. Only problem so far was the flashing textures in ms fs2002, corrected via powerstrip (one time fix see rage3d forums). Ati is working on the problem. This system is slightly faster than my p4 1.8 rdram with the 8500.
The a7m + 8500 is a good combination.

**MetalCartman** · 1 December 2001, 02:38

...but there is nothing like DVDmax on any other card than on matrox'. On the ATI, you have to use "Clone" mode to watch movies on your TV.

CU,
Cartman

**alexudal** · 1 December 2001, 05:50

Please more on 2D of Radeon 8500

Mine are similar concerns as the start of this thread (woel).

I looked through all the major hardware review sites on (ATi) Radeon 8500 together with the best of them -- iXBT, and now I know it's by quite large margin the best card in 3D (gaming), except for some instances, some OpenGL (don't recall, coz don't care), and except for its probably OEM, or non-ATi specimens which are not so much overclockable (DDR of 4 ns, instead of 3.6 ns, and so forth.)

And yes, the card's shootout was invariably against GeForce 3 Titan 500 -- Matrox was absolutely out of comparison in reviews.

My general concern is 2D color/font antialias rendering at higher resolutions -- 1920,1800x1440x32 and the like, nobody could touch my Matrox G400 Max'ed with these so far. But the sparce notes here and there in these reviews suggest that with Radeon's RAMDAC clocked at 400 MHz there should be and apparently was observed finest sharpness, resolution and fastest window redrawing beating Matrox. I need to know now whats Radeon's 2D quality at 1600x1200x32 and higher in comparison to Matrox G400/450 however overclocked?

As it looks like, it's the question for dwright: Hey dwright, did you use Matrox G400 (Max) before your OEM Radeon 8500? What's the difference in 2D quality between them, can you recall?(presumably, if your monitor is 19"+, and good enough in colors -- like Sony, Princeton, Iiyama, and the like)

DVD overlays at higher resolutions are also of my concern. Though an iXBT review mentioned an integrated ATi Rage TV out chip on Radeon 8500, I need some practical observations here, too.

Thanks

**dwright** · 1 December 2001, 06:55

On the P4 machine I run with a Samsung 171s tft at 1280*1024 32 bit colour. The 2d is perfect, I did some screen tests comparing it to the Vewsonic PT795 (also run by an 8500). My max is on my wife's machine still going strong. This is the best 2D I have ever seen. I was previously running a Viewsonic PF815 (gave it to my son). It default resolution was 1600 *1200 but I was never happy with the focus in the lower right 1/4 of the screen (I even sent it back but they did not fix the problem). The 8500 ran the PF815 just fine at 1600*1200*32 @ 85hz . The 8500 is fine on the PT795, but looks grey, washed out, and fuzzy compared to the tft screen. The PT795 has blacker blacks than the 171s tft screen.

All machines have dvd drives and I have not had a problem with the dvd overlay. I use the ati dvd player and PowerDVDxp V4. Santana is on the PT795 AMD machine @1600*1200*32 right now. I do have to go the the ati overlay settings and reset then to default each time I play a dvd because they are not set correctly for some reason. Ati knows this need fixing.

Both machines have the old tv-wonder pci card. They did not work properly with geforce3 but do work with the 8500.

Both cards are OEM but I did flash to retail, found texture problems in 3dmark2001 and then flashed back to saved oem bios. The ddr memory chips on both cards are 3.6 chips. OEM sells for $309CDN vs $449CDN for the retail units.

I am happy with the 8500's.

**woel** · 1 December 2001, 08:41

I ordered the Radeon 8500 yesterday... let's hope it will work... it costed about 30 $.

/Leo

**woel** · 1 December 2001, 09:01

I mean 300 $...

**alexudal** · 1 December 2001, 14:28

more explanations...

So, dwright, as I got it you didn't make a *direct* comparison: same box, same *quality* brand 21" CRT monitor (what Viewsonic or Samsung 17-inchers have to do with real quality brands, I just don't know), but G400 first, then Radeon 8500?

Then, another question arises: at 1600x1200x32 with Matrox G400 Max, were there any re-drawing *ghosts* when you say, dragged a big-sized window across your desktop fast enough? What was the similar visible 2D speed of Radeon 8500, was it better?

Yeah, lot of them manufacturers redo their drivers for better support of overlays at resolutions/depths other than originally prescribed.

As for TV, I plan to upgrade to AccessDTV DMR HDTV card -- to watch TV of close-to-DVD quality. Looks like that $379 card works fine with both G400 and ATi Radeon 8500, but hardly there is some independent opinion to find, as this HDTV card is quite rare.

woel, Pricewatch.com, or PriceScan.com, or StreetPrice.com would give you quotes for $186 for OEM, $195 for non-ATi Radeon, $245 for ATi retail, with S&H at about $12 to 20 internationally you could save some bucks... Personally I'd wait for pre-Xmas two-weeks, to maybe slash another $20-30 out of OEM price.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
ASUS P3B-F PentIII450@600, 512 MB of junk CAS2 RAM;
Win98SE/RedHat Linux 7.1.94 Roswell +KDE 2.2.2 dual boot;
HP P1110 (Sony FD) 0.24 21" 300 MHz monitor@1920x1440x32;
Genuine IBM PC-AT military grade steel buckle spring 101 keys Keyboard (model 1390131 of 1984) 3 kilograms, lasts forever;
5ns sample of Matrox G400 DH 32 Max'ed (with a Pent 90 fan put on);
rest of my system is complete junk

**PeTe** · 1 December 2001, 16:40

Just to point out one thing here...

People here in europe would think $245 for ATi retail is a STEAL here... RETAIL radeon costs about $300 here ( in Finland ).. And still that card is the best bet if you want to keep that card for a while... i could get a GF3Ti500 for +$50, but i really think that ATI will come through ( that GF3Ti500 card is hercules ).

The only OEM card that had a price advantage over the RETAIL here costed about $270.. i payed for G400MAX a bit more than anything else, but it lasted for good 2.5 years... and all of that it run anyting i threw at it.. with GOOD fps. My Radeon is coming monday so hoping i'll be as happy with ATI as i was with MATROX.

( And to MATROX, you just made us wait and wait.. FOR TOO LONG. )

PeTe

**PeTe** · 5 December 2001, 12:33

Well i got a Radeon 8500LE today for $250, put in the retail bios and now it runs at 275/275 like RETAIL radeon. Pretty good deal, atleast i think so.. couldnt find ANY retails, and those would have costed $300+.

Only AquaNox had some driver/game related problems, havent updatet that one yet, so that might explain something.

PeTe

**Guru** · 5 December 2001, 12:35

CTO: http://www.sharkyextreme.com/hardwar...cle.php/932821

Although both of the new RADEON cards are impressive, the RADEON 8500 is the real gem of the ATI crown. While the GeForce3 Ti 500 still gets the nod for all-out gaming systems, the RADEON 8500 is virtually unmatched as a total 2D, DVD and 3D total video solution. Best of all it comes in at GeForce3 price levels, making it a value leader as well. This makes the RADEON 8500 one of the more intriguing products in some time, as it contains all the ingredients for a high-end video solution right now, and any further driver refinements will only sweeten the pot.

**PeTe** · 5 December 2001, 12:47

And btw, i cant see ANY difference with 2D. Of course I DONT have 2 computers to really test this and i only use 1280x1024 resolution on my desktop, but still. If i pump it up to 1600x1200x32 the pic is about the same that is was with my G400MAX.

PeTe

Ps. Quick note, my 3Dmark2001 scores went from ~1600 to ~6700 with this upgrade.

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Radeon 8500

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