Got my Radeon 8500 today

[GT98]

Well been waiting on this one from Dell since 10/4. It goes to figure that I get it two days after contacting the BBB about the problem and its sitting in room when I get home.

Impressions so far:

2D is hell of alot better then the Kyro II I had in it. The overall the colors are alot brighter and crisper then the Kyro I had before. I run at 1280x1024 on a Cornerstone C1025 21in monitor.

3D...Well so far its been a mixed bag without much success. RTCW looks nice but I'm running into a problem when I die the program dies with it I've been reading that other cards have the same problem, but I didnt have the problem with the Kyro II. Ghost Recon works fine. I'm running into major problems with Operation Flashpoint, but I'm gonna work on those some more when I'm done posting here.

Well This is just intinal impressions,as I've only had in my machine for 2-3 hours now and I'll evently do a system wipe with XP getting installed to replace W2K, but nothing so far that would make it a no go in my book. This card should be my bridge till when ever Matrox gets its next card out...which from what my contact says might be a very long time...but I'm keeping the faith, but then again I'm on my 3rd replacement card for my G400MAX .


Scott

[Indiana]

Lucky you - I'm searching for one and can't find any... even though I'd happily accept a third party product (I really don't care 'bout that 3 fps I'm gonna lose due to slightly lower clockings).

Have you used the drivers that came with the card or the newer "unofficial"/beta ones that can ba found e.g. on rage3D?
Those are faster and said to fix most of the early drivers problems.
They're better and faster on the old Radeons as well, btw.

[DuRaNgO]

Me too

Got mine this weekend, not from Dell though
It's a full retail

Damn fast, that's for sure, blows away the gefarce3 in quality

I had to reinstall many of the older games on my system as they wouldn't run under the old install

Timedemo in Q3 was 85fps @ 1600x1200 32Bit all settings maxed

8460 in 3dmark2001 default

Just picked up max Payne and will be trying it next

Still waiting for Matrox, but this is certainly a nice fill-in

[EvilDonnyboy]

Got mine last weekend, ATi Radeon 8500 retail. Running at 300/300. The memory will prolly go a bit higher, but the core is burning hot with the tiny default hsf. I'm gonna leave it at 300/300 tho, I'm in no rush it oc it. It's more than fast enough for me.

From my G400 32mb SH, the 2D image quality is just the same. But of course, I'm only using a crappy 17" Viewsonic at 1152x864. I'm gonna pick up a 22"er soon (prolly a viewsonic P225F because i can get a good deal on it).

I've had zero problems with the drivers (except for the fact that it needs a fresh install when going from a matrox product, you can't just uninstall those matrox drivers). DVD playback is noticably better (but not amazingly so). 3D image quality is noticably better, because of the availability of anisotropic filtering and smoothvision (truform is nothing but a stupid gimmick in CS, but still has potential).

I'm very happy with this card, no regrets.

[DuRaNgO]

I've noticed the 2D to be slightly lower than my old g400, Truform in Serious Sam looks very good, the Matrox drivers were easily removed here

[Hati]

@Indiana

Have a look at

http://www.arlt.com

They have an OEM Radeon 8500 listed, but at 699,99DM!

Did not contact the call center if it is available, but it seems so.

Hati

[Indiana]

Hati, thanks for the tip. We do have an Arlt store in Reutlingen, but the last time I was there ('bout a week ago) they only had the Radeon7500 and couldn't say when they'd get the 8500.

But then 700 DM for the OEM is quite expensive...

[Hati]

Yes, I think for an OEM card the price is too high.
This kept me from asking for details (manufacturer, games included etc.) Looks like a 'bulk' offer (you get just the card and a driver CD I guess).
As I will be in Stuttgart tomorrow, maybe I will have a look at the card - if I have enough time.
Hati

[Bohrn]

Ordered one yesterday, but due to who knows what,it won't be here till monday now! (: curses on thier front lawn,may it grow thick crabgrass for a year and a day!

I payed $405 canadian for a retail ATI Raedon 8500. High price, but I just got a $275 bonus from my boss for a good job in November, so I hadda grab one C'mon monday!!!

[Novdid]

I also ordered one yesterday, and sold my Kyro 2 in the progress...so now I'm stuck with a PCI Riva TNT until the card arrives.

Man, the 2D of this TNT sucks (speed and quality wise), and you people complain about the 2D of the Kyro and Radeon like it was the plague...

[Indiana]

I had an Asus (shudder) RivaTNT card myself and I know what you're talking about. This TNT card or better its baad 2D was the main reason for me to get a Matrox as next card.
But while TNT 2D quality really is the plaque, the Kyro's is unfortunately only a bit better and still SLOW.
You can't really compare that to the Radeons decent 2D (not magnificient, but decent).

[dwright]

Hi EvilDonnyboy,
Did you overclock teh 8500 to 300/300 or are the retails now shipping at 300/300 instead of 275/275. My local pc store just got retail in today. Due to short supply I have 2 oem's at 250/250. I could sell an oem and buy retail if it's at 300/300.
I like the 8500 and use them with the newest 17" Samsung tft's. Every pixel is perfect. XP cleartype makes the text very clear because it functions a the subpixel level. I can read tmes new roman at fontsize 6 with these tft's and the 8500.
Thanks
David

[EvilDonnyboy]

All retails ship at 275/275. I used powerstrip to overclock to 300/300, which is average success for retail 8500's.

Most OEM's at 250/250 will overclock to 275/275, but undoubtedly some will not.

There will most likely be a successor to the 8500, running at a higher clock (rumoured 300/300). It's even slightly possible for this successor to stock 128mb of DDR memory (like the 8800 fireGL card) but unlikely (due to cost, and it's pointless to have 128mb of frame buffer for games).

[dwright]

Thanks EvilDonnyboy,
My OEM's will do 270 max on the memory. I have heard ATI run the OEM memory to 3.2 volts instead of 3.5 for retail so that the card cannot clock memory to 275. I read this on the rdage3d forums for the 8500.

[Indiana]

To Hati (and all other germans that are interested in getting the Radeon8500):
Comtech has the Radeon8500 marked "auf Lager" (="in stock") - and it's todays special, so the price is reduced to 599,- DM (from 649), plus there are no shipping costs. But this offer is only valid today (09.12.01) so you have to be fast.

It's not exactly clear if this is the retail or the OEM package, but it looks much like retail, it's stated as "ATI Radeon8500", without any OEM mentioned, they're displaying the retail package and it's coming with a 3 year guarantee (I don't think there are OEM cards with 3 year guarantee).
For a retail card the price would be perfectly O.K. I've ordered mine an hour ago, let's just hope they were not lying with it being "in stock".