ATI Radeon LE Ripoff

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Hello folks - just in case you are tempted by low advertised price for ATI Radeon 32meg DDR card (like Axion at $107) you might want to read my letter back to Axion upon opening my package first. (Or do you think I'm flying off the handle, gotta tell ya this really pissed me off!)
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Dear Axion - WE have a problem. My problem is that I gave you $107 +$8 shipping to purchase what was supposed to be an ATI 32 meg DDR Radeon OEM video card. I corresponded with your sales rep via email to ask what was difference between this product and full retail ATI Radeon. I was told that only difference was retail box, demo software and brochures, but that it was in fact a real ATI Radeon card. Your web site shows a true Radeon card with fan. What I got was a card without fan. Upon further investigation I find that the card you sent is not even really an ATI product (it is a Chinese knock-off that just has the ATI Radeon chip). What you sent me is a card clocked significantly slower than the ATI Radeon (148 vs 166 MHz), with one of the key Radeon features disabled (Hyper Z) and with no fan.

Your web site product description page mentioned none of these differences, and when I explicity asked about details of this product none of these details were mentioned. I was misled into believing that I was buying an ATI card, not some cheap knock-off.

I demand my money back in full. You can't pay me for the time wasted and irritation, but you will pay for the return shipping because YOU are responsible for the return of a falsely advertised product. If I do not received full refund, I will take as many measures as required to reach a just resolution, starting with the Better Business Bureau.
 
noko

noko

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Jan 22, 2001
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The Radeon LE is getting a good reputation but I agree with you. You where mislead, expected an ATI card which comes with ATI service (good or bad) but was given a different product. You should be given an apology and at least a 2nd day delivery of the real Mccoy. The LE seems to be a good value for the money but I do not like how it is being promoted, basically riding off of ATI's reputation hoping that the customer won't notice that it is made by some unknown company in China who's warranty and quality may change any day. Plus ATI is not distinguishing there Radeons from another manufacturer so the customers and the retailers themselves are confused. I bet most retailers didn't even know that what they bought was not from ATI, only the Radeon chip. Kinda like a Rolex watch made not by Rolex. So this maybe pissing off some retailers as well. Any retailers care to comment?

<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by noko on 02/17/01 08:19 AM.</EM></FONT></P>
 
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If you would read my previous posts about the Radeon LE, you would see that for a "crappy" card, it kicks ass. I was able to get my cheap-ass card for 85 dollars, no fan, no hyperz, etc.... right now it is clocked up to 195mhz core and memory, and ripping up the competition.... I understand that they shouldnt have lied to you, but for my 85 dollars I got a frickin' great card..


PS I've tweaked this card out, best settings, best drivers, overclocked.. if you need any advice on it let me know


-AMD's are not for the faint of heart... Intels? those are for newbies :eek:)-
 
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I've been able to beat the 64MB version in a few benchmarks, as have others.. www.newegg.com for 83 dollars or so... free shipping... once you get it, let me know and I'll help you out..


-AMD's are not for the faint of heart... Intels? those are for newbies :eek:)-
 
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I was wondering how it was that these cards were listed so cheap on pricewatch. And how is it that a Radeon DDR can have no hyper-z function? Isn't that one of the funtions of the "Charisma" engine to provide? I find it interesting to note that on ATI's website that nowhere on the description page for the 32MB DDR version is Hyper-z even mentioned. For all the others (32MB SDR, 64MB DDR, VE) it is. When searching by actual product number (100-430029 per ATI) on pricewatch, prices start at $144 instead of $85 when searching under just Radeon. Some vendors mention "no hyper-z" but others do not. This is a serious issue I think, and ATI needs to get on it.
 
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Okay, quick rundown (btw, READ TFPT) I've said this about three times now, in different places... the LE is different from the retail Radeon how?

1) No fan on the chip, just a larger passive heatsink (I say it does its job well)

2) HyperZ is no enabled.. to enable hyperZ please copy this to a notepad and save as radeon.reg, and then double click on it, reboot, and presto, happy Hyper Z enabled..
REGEDIT4

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\ATI Technologies\Driver\0001\atidxhal]
"DisableHierarchicalZ"="0"
"EnableWaitUntilIdxTriList2"="1"
"DisableHyperZ"="0"
"FastZClearEnabled"="1"
"Vsync"="0"
"AntiAlias"="0"
"ZFormats"="3"
"ExportCompressedTex"="1"

3) The RADEON chip IS ATI's!!! The rest of it is a knockoff by some chinese company.... what does that mean? *shrugs* so far all it means is that you get a kickass video card for over 40% off...

So, again, this thread should be title LE DEAL not LE RIPOFF.. other than the fact that one place was misrepresenting the facts....



-AMD's are not for the faint of heart... Intels? those are for newbies :eek:)-
 
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Ncogneto - here is Axions reply (abridged).
"I am issuing a RMA # for the return of your video card for refund.
Here is a link to the ATI website explaining how there may be differences in their products.
Consumer Advisory - Variations in ATI Products from Different Sources
Technical Support and Drivers for OEM Boards
http://support.ati.com/identify/advisory.html
At this time we will offer to drop the restocking fee. You will be responsible for returning the OEM card because it is a ATI OEM as stated. See the above referenced ATI website for the explanation from ATI.
Roy Wileman
roy@axiontech.com"

dxkj - your experience is consistent with the thread at Anand forum and elsewhere. I'm not disputing that the LE at $83 is a deal as long as it is advertised as being what it is. It's Axion's false adverstising that got me ripped. False picture, no mention of functional differences, and even when I asked they didn't tell me. I won't be doing business with Axion again.

Here is a slightly longer regedit entry to bring enable LE.
REGEDIT4

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\ATI Technologies\Driver\0000\atidxhal]
"EnableWaitUntilIdxTriList2"="1"
"TableFogEnable"="1"
"WFogEnable"="0"
"ZFogEnable"="1"
"DisableHierarchicalZ"="1"
"DisableHyperZ"="0"
"FastZClearEnabled"="1"
"Vsync"="0"
"AntiAlias"="0"
"ZFormats"="15"
"ExportCompressedTex"="1"
"DitherAlpha"="1"
"ExportWBuffer"="0"

Comparing the two and removing common lines, the differences are:
"Short" version (which seems to trace back to a Chinese post http://www.pcpop.com/info/20010212/ ) that was one fo the first articles looking into what the heck an LE really is.)
"DisableHierarchicalZ"="0"
"ZFormats"="3"

Longer version posted on Anand forum:
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\ATI Technologies\Driver\0000\atidxhal]
"TableFogEnable"="1"
"WFogEnable"="0"
"ZFogEnable"="1"
"DisableHierarchicalZ"="1"
"ZFormats"="15"
"DitherAlpha"="1"
"ExportWBuffer"="0"

I'm the sort of guy who should stay out of registry, but I'm willing to go in for this purpose. But which is best key change to use? When you disable DisableHierarchicalZ by using "DisableHierarchicalZ"="1", are you disabling HZ or disabing the disabling of HZ? This reminds of the bad old days of inscrutable DOS memory commands to tweak my hot new 16MHz 386 with 40meg hard drive.
I freely fess up that I don't know squat, all sincere replies appreciated.

oldfart over at Anand also points this out
"That stuff is not there by default. The keys need to be added. Check your reg and see if the keys are located in \Driver\0000 as below. They may be \0001 or even \0002. If so, modify the below to match. Next, copy everything into a text file and save as hyper.reg. Right click and pick merge. That should add the keys in."

(Am I breaking taboo by bringing info from alternative forums into this, if so sorry, just trying to help people in that same boat as me. I'm such a newbie I'm not even sure what LOL means)



This being a graphics card forum, many of you probably know this, but for those of you are new to gc tweaking like me: to increase the clock speed of the LE do this -
1) download and install Powerstrip shareware.
http://www.rage3d.com/cgi-bin/news/search.pl?keyword=powerstrip


2) Save this as a batchfile substituting your path and clock speed desired:
c:\windows\pstrip.exe /clk 166 /exit
Create a shortcut to it and run it in your startup group. This eliminates the need to overclock the graphics card manually every time you reboot.
In place of 166 use whatever frequency you are aiming for. I've seen several reports of 180-190 running successfully. But performance gains above 166 don't seem that great and I personally don't want to push that passive heat sink too hard and also want to keep the box cool to keep safety margin for overclocked Tbird on rather small PCPower&Cooling Z1-D cpu cooler.

If you really want to run the LE out hard, you can add a 50mm cooling fan. One person recommended this one: 11cfm, 26dBA fan for $6 at http://phamcomputer.safeshopper.com/18/189.htm?196 as a good and quiet fan.

Thanks for the feedback.
- Glen
 
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