ATI 8500 / Herc 8500LE / PC 7500 Evil Master

[Pizzarro]

Hello...
I'm vid card shopping and I've happened into a bit of a conundrum.

I can get a white box ATI 8500 for around $180 now.
I can get a retail Hercules 8500LE for around $165 in a month.
I can get a retail PowerColor 7500 for around $100 now.

The reasonable choice would, of course, be the 7500. It has good speed, pretty good drivers, and it's fully supported in XFree86 4.2.0 (I dual boot between Slackware 8 and Win2k). I could also order it today, if I wanted. Now, the 8500 has 2D only support in XFree86 4.2.0 but I'm sure that will change as a little time goes on. I could always play games in Win2k, so that's not a horrible issue.

I guess the major issue would have to be the quality of the Hercules card. Does it have DVI/VGA/TV out? Does it have the dongle? What is the clock speeds? Etc... I saw a couple pictures throught an Anandtech link, but I can't find it anymore. There weren't any specs, though.
JJ

 

[Jehdin]

8500LE's are Retail 8500's with slower RAM and a 250/250 clock speed. Retail 8500's have 275/275 clock speeds. The Hercules card should be more or less the same as ATI's LE but maybe some special features or something......
Anyway I say go for the Retail 8500, it is the Equal to a Geforce 3 TI500 whereas the 7500 is the equal to the Geforce 2 Ultra. I'm sure the 8500 would be supported in XFree86 if it supports the 7500?? But then again I could be wrong.

<A HREF="http://gamershq.madonion.com/compare2k1.shtml?2600992" target="_new"> 3DMark 2001 Score </A>

 

[Pizzarro]

The RAM of the 8500LE would be slower, like 5.5ns slower, or just clocked slower? I read that some OEM's were using 5.5ns RAM instead of 3.6ns. I saw that PowerCooler is making two Evil Master II's on the 8500LE. The main reason that I ask about the Her is because it's listed on Pricewatch as dvi/vga dual head but it's only $165. That's less than a white box 8500 and if it's just a clock difference then Her would be an easy choice. If it's a RAM speed issue, though, then it wouldn't be a wise choice.

Sure, you can say "go for the retail 8500" but I'm not going to spend that much for a video card. I don't want to spend >$100 but I'm definately not going to spend >$200.

As far as X is concerned, from what I've read, 4.2.0 has 2d/3d support for the 7500 but only 2d support for the 8500. I assume that it has to do with pixel/vertex shading and maybe the pipelines, since that's the main difference between the two cards.
JJ

 

[Jehdin]

When I say "Retail 8500" I mean the "white box 8500". The LE has slower RAM as in the Regular(retail, whatever) 8500 has 3.6ns RAM and the LE has slower, usually 4ns, but can be slower depending on the manufacturer..... Anyway <A HREF="http://www.webuildpcs.com/product.asp?3=115" target="_new"> this place </A> has the Radeon 8500 with 3.6ns RAM for $175.

<A HREF="http://gamershq.madonion.com/compare2k1.shtml?2600992" target="_new"> 3DMark 2001 Score </A>

 

[Pizzarro]

Oh, my bad...
I didn't realize there was that big of a difference in RAM speeds per card. I just thought it was 4ns and 5.5ns. The link that you said says that it doesn't include a DVI connector. Would that be the dvi/vga dongle or the actual dvi connector?
Hehehe...

 

[Jehdin]

I think that is a DVI to VGA connector that it's talking about.

<A HREF="http://gamershq.madonion.com/compare2k1.shtml?2600992" target="_new"> 3DMark 2001 Score </A>

 

[Pizzarro]

I ended up getting the 7500 listed at NewEgg. It is supposed to be 250/230 with 4ns RAM. At $96 + $0 s/h I couldn't pass it up. Beefy goodness for <$100. I was really thinking about your 8500 but with shipping it was almost exactly 2x the price.
Thanks for the help, though.
JJ

 

[Jehdin]

The Radeon 7500 should be powerful enough fora most games. Guess I shoulda mentioned that...but if you are a freak like me, then ya gotta have a good card, so I'm getting the 8500.
Hey I think I got a good signature for myself...."I'm a freak!" yeh thats it.....er maybe not........

<A HREF="http://gamershq.madonion.com/compare2k1.shtml?2600992" target="_new"> 3DMark 2001 Score </A>

 

[Pizzarro]

Yeah...
I know that the 7500 is plenty for games, now. I guess I knew, all along which card I *should* buy, but I really wanted the 8500.
Hehehe...

At <$100 I can afford to buy a new haus in a year or two.

 

[Jehdin]

haus?

8500's are equal to TI500's and for only $20-$30 more then most TI200's who WOULDN'T want one? Unless they are Pro-Nvidia, or rich..........I just want a good card for less then $200.....

<A HREF="http://gamershq.madonion.com/compare2k1.shtml?2600992" target="_new"> 3DMark 2001 Score </A>