Recommend videocard for a friend's rig

[Nowhere]

Something's seriously wrong when it's not the latest...

[Gurm]

Out of curiosity, what do you think is the most stable BIOS for this chip? I have an 8500DV in a machine that needs a bit of repair (was cannibalized to fix my wife's machine), but I'd appreciate the info for when I rebuild it.

Thanks
- Steve

E-mail me. I'll dig mine up, or rip it off the card, or something.

[Gurm]

Something's seriously wrong when it's not the latest...

It's "sort of" the latest. It's the latest for an actual 8500, tweaked up with a few things that were intended for the newer cards like the DV/9200/9250/etc.

I flashed it on... oh, gotta be a year and a half ago? It's not direct-from-ATI, either they don't officially support BIOS updates. It's from a Gigabyte card + mods, or something.

[Jon P. Inghram]

As for ATI BIOS's... http://www.techpowerup.com/bios/

And be sure to turn UCWC off unless you want to corrupt the flash.

[Nowhere]

It's "sort of" the latest. It's the latest for an actual 8500, tweaked up with a few things that were intended for the newer cards like the DV/9200/9250/etc.

I flashed it on... oh, gotta be a year and a half ago? It's not direct-from-ATI, either they don't officially support BIOS updates. It's from a Gigabyte card + mods, or something.

Something's wrong when the best bios is not from the ones who've made the chip/card?

[Gurm]

Something's wrong when the best bios is not from the ones who've made the chip/card?

It is. Ok, here goes.

ATI's official stance is that there ARE no BIOS updates. Not that they don't support it, but that it doesn't happen. The BIOS that shipped with your card is the ONLY BIOS for that card.

This is one of the reasons their drivers are so big - they work around issues that SHOULD be addressed in the BIOS... in drivers.

Their OEM's, on the other hand, are nowhere near so vehement. Many make the flasher available for downloading, and post regular BIOS updates for their cards.

Now here comes the kicker - ALL BIOSes... come from ATI. The OEM's do VERY little to tweak them for their specific cards, beyond just turning on and off the features they did or didn't include, like TV-out or DVI or what have you.

So as a general rule, the BIOS for the "64MB Sapphire Radeon 8500 v2.7" is 100% compatible with a Powercolor Radeon, and superior to the v2.4 that shipped with that card.

Follow?

[Nowhere]

I see...

Not a problem for me since I can't buy ATI cards here