radeon 8500

[shady]

Please help!
How much would I get from 8500 on my celeron 500 system?
I know that my cpu is not up to date, but anyway.
My current GPU is TNT2.
I dont expect miracules, all i want is that some of the
new games work at decent fps (25-40 top) at normal details.
If some of you have experience with that please give me an advice.
Thanks!

 

[Nights_L]

I got a Celeron500Mhz before with a RadeonSDR
let me tell you that I got around 900 in 3Dmark2001. Games that supports for DX7 and up will not run as smooth as I thought
but that's with RadeonSDR, sure that Radeon8500 is much more powerful than SDR, but from my experience, and pardon me, I would say that 8500 on a Celeron500Mhz is such a bad idea. Upgrade yoru system first I suggest.
because you have to notice that not all 3Dgames depends on your 3D Card.

 

[selfbuilt]

I concur with Nights_L ... if you want to play newer games, upgrade your processor/system before getting a new graphics card. Most newer games (e.g. FPS, sims, etc.) are *very* CPU intensive.

However, if you just want to play your older games at a higher frame rate, then a new graphics card will likely help considerably ... but the 8500 is probably overkill.

To give you my example, going from a Matrox G400 to a GeForce2 Ti on a Duron 600MHz system almost tripled my 3DMark 2001 score (from 950 to 2600). Replacing the Duron 600 with a Duron 1.3 then gave me 3800 3DMarks, which is probably just acceptable for modern gaming at *low* settings. But that system had very decent hardware for the time (7200 rpm HD, 512MB PC133, etc.) and the Duron is definitely faster than the older celerons. You are unlikely to see anything so dramatic, even with a faster card like the 8500 (which is GeForce3 equivalent).

Simply put, there's no point in severly bottlenecking your new graphics card, unless you plan to upgrade the CPU and other components soon.

Where does good judgement come from? Experience. Where does experience come from? Bad judgement.

 

[cleeve]

Your system is definitely throttled by the old celeron.

I'd say, sure, upgrade to a Radeon 8500... WITH THE CAVIAT that you plan to upgrade your motherboard/CPU next.

The 8500 will give you a boost, but it will not be enough to make newer games (i.e. Unreal tournament 2003) playable (25-40 FPS).
Older games that your celeron can currently play should fly, though.

If cash is a problem, get yourself a cheap Socket-A motherboard and the fastest Duron you can afford. Very easy on the wallet to buy now, it will get you by for a while, but your upgrade path is sweet... even the lowliest socket A motherboard sold today will take at least an Athlon 2600+ when you can afford it in the future.
Some motherboards from ECS will even let you use your old SDRAM, and have DDR slots on them if you want to upgrade to DDR in the future.

But buying the video card won't hurt, really. You're going to have to get one sooner or later if you're serious about playing games.

It's just that you'll probably see more of a boost from a motherboard/CPU, and if you can reuse your old computer's components, it won't cost all that much more than an 8500 would.

To summarize: upgrade your system first! Then get a decent video card later.

Good luck,

- Cleeve

 

[jclw]

What kind of motherboard do you have?

*Dual PIII-800 @900 i440BX and Tualeron 1.2 @1.74 i815*

 

[redface]

Don't expect too much with your current system.
I think a C500 work on a motherboard FSB of 66Mhz right?
I expect a R8500 to operate on a PIII system with preferably 133Mhz FSB (or AMD equivalent).

I got a second hand PIII733EB + Motherboard + 256mb Ram+ Radeon 7200 from my friend for a very cheap price last July (around USD$140). They together with my WD ATA66 harddrive allow me to play most new games (at lower quality).

However I have a P4 2.4Ghz/R8500 system already, so my main purpose for the PIII machine was for Linux testing and I use them to play some older games like CivIII, Wizard, Ghost Recon, Final Fantasy VII, Commando II etc.
(save some electric bill 250W PSU)

PS: I o/c my PIII to around 880mhz with FSB of 160mhz with sound blaster live since my onboard audio97 couldn't handle the o/c after FSB 146mhz.

A fine day!

 

[DCB_AU]

If you want to save money, you can, eg. upgrade your MB and CPU cheaply- fit a Celeron (478 P4 factor)1700 Mhz CPU{$99} to a Asus P4S533 Main Board{$159} for a total-$258 Aus.
This board has the AGP Slot and later if you wanted you can upgrade your CPU to a P4.

<font color=red>DCB</font color=red><font color=white>_</font color=white><font color=blue>AU</font color=blue>

 

[LtBlue14]

for comparison, i upgraded an old sony 733mhz PIII (of course, far better than a 500 celeron) from a TNT2 to a radeon 8500 (275/275, not LE), and did not see the performance jumps i was expecting. i wanted to be able to play unreal tournament 2003 respectably. and i CAN on 800x600 with all details etc pretty low (below normal). all i can say is your cpu is really gonna hurt you because games these days like fast cpus AND graphics cards

<A HREF="http://www.tweaktown.com/document.php?dType=guide&dId=120&dPage=1" target="_new">WinXP tweak guide</A>
<A HREF="http://www.tweaktown.com/document.php?dType=guide&dId=145&dPage=1" target="_new">WinXP tweak guide 2</A>

 

[redface]

And you better play the NEW games with Win98, WinXP just eats up the resources. (e.g. 256mb RAM minimum for XP compared to 128mb RAM for Win98SE)

I agree with Tom that onboard sound chip will also drag down your performance for your not so new computer.

A fine day!

 

[redface]

Oh, and 8500 will only provide the performance jump for games that are not so CPU intensive.

at most 8500/9000 are what you should have for your system (the not-so-new). State-of-Art cards will only cost you more money, you won't get the bang for buck you expect.

A fine day!

 

[kimikaze7]

I'm in a similar situation. Got a PIII 800EB, Asus CUSL2-M mobo, 256MB PC-133 SDRAM, Elsa Gladiac GeForce 2GTS 32MB and all on Windows 98SE. I'd like to upgrade, but only if it's worth it. The highest I can go with my mobo is PIII 1.02GHz. Coupled with a Radeon 8500, would that me give me enough of a performance boost? If not, then I think I'll just wait an buy a Dell.
In case you're wondering, the game I'm really trying to improve is C&C Generals.

 

[phial]

i agree an 8500 will make your older games like quake3 and CS and Oni and whatnot Scream compared to the TNT


like youll be able to run them at crazy high resolutions and detail.. but if you try to put like unreal in..heh good luck running that

blah.. siggys suck

 

[Nights_L]

Wait more..
cuz games such as Unreal 2 will not run very well if you have PIII 1.02Ghz + 8500

 

[redface]

The FSB 133 with SDRAM running at 133mhz is your bottleneck when play 3d games.
getting you a PIII 1gig won't help much since you've already got a PIII800EB. PIII 1gig with 512kb L2cache might help but not much.
A R8500 will only help you on your current games, but not new ones (no Unreal for sure).
You'll need a good and cheap AMD 1800+ system with 512MB DDR to really boost your 3D experience.

A fine day!

 

[kimikaze7]

Been looking around and found a Radeon 8500LE made by Sapphire Technology. They seem to be the only manufacturer who makes them for less than $100. Are these guys any good? Should i go for the 64MB 8500LE or the 128MB 8500?

 

[tombance]

If you can afford it get the 128mb 8500 (non-LE)

<A HREF="http://service.futuremark.com/compare?2k1=5467618 " target="_new">Almost Breaking 12k!!</A>

 

[Nights_L]

Well, I have Radeon8500LE made by Sapphire, clocked at 250/230, not abd at all
3Dmark2001 can go up to 9000 currently

 

[kimikaze7]

Really? May I ask what your PC specs are?

 

[Nights_L]

Sure
AMD AthlonXP 2000+ @1667Mhz (Palomino Core)
MSI KT3-Ultra2, VIA KT333 based
DDR333Mhz, run at 266Mhz with 2/2/2/5
Radeon8500LE @ 275/250
....and so on, hard disk, sound card...

With Catalyst3.2, Highest performance setting in ATI's control panel
~8700 in WindowsXP
~9000 in Windows98

I flashed the Core Clock to 275 for testing, put back to 250 after, I got no issue by putting it to 275..but I just feel like it to put it at default speed
weird huh? maybe~