FAO:Bambers, RE: your 8500LE

[Randell]

As you're UK based, and you got the card November last year, and its an ATI built model, with 3.6ns Hynix Ram, I'm guessing its the original Supergrace Radeon 8500 batch sold on ebuyer.com? If so I have the same model. Nice card for the money at the time. I bought it because I was sure later batches, although they might end up cheaper, would not be as well made, or have such good Ram, once Supergrace started building them themselves (which is now true I understand).

I have also flashed to Retail bios and done the pencil trick. It runs fine at 275/275, and also at 275/290. I was wondering what voltages or other mods you may have done to make it run at 300+ as my card locks up in 3dMark or GLexcess above 290 memory and 280 core.

My other thought for my limitation factor was that it could be my PSU, which is not approved for my XP system (it was approved for the Duron system at the time I got it).

TBH 275/290 is still very good from 250/250 (at no extra mod 'cost') but seems low compared to what most people are claiming for the Supergrace card (300/300 being minimum almost). But then I wonder how thoroughly people test before making such claims

 

[Doomtrooper]

My retail hits 300/300 but I also paid $399 Canadian on its Debut in Canada...Now I see Oems hitting over 300 with slight Mods...grrrr

 

[Randell]

£164 last November, Retail was £210-£229 at the time

The Gf3Ti200 was £175-£190, before dropping to £150 'ish by Christmas.

Gf3Ti500 was £279-£329.

I did wait and see what kind of quality the Supergrace card was from other peoples posts at Rage3d before I bought it. I was dead set initially on the Gf3Ti200 as my price/performance card,

 

[Bambers]

I think it might have actually been late october (I paid just under £200 for it and retails were preordering for £250). I got it from aria.co.uk (only place I could find selling them) and it wasn't branded. It was in a white box and came with ati driver/MMC CD, an s-video lead and a DVI-VGA thing. The card itself looks the same as a retail.

For cooling I've still got the stock cpu cooler (little black one found on gf1s and 2s) but I've added some small ramsinks and placed an 80mm fan ontop. I do run with the PC case open as closed it seems to have the thermal properties of an eco-friendly house .

For reference the standard retail voltages are 1.75 core and 3.65 mem.
Mine was 1.61 core and 3.1 mem initially and with those it could just scrape to 275/275. I currently have it at 1.79v and 3.83v and it runs just stable at 310/325. I can get a few artefacts but it seems to depend on the temperature of my room. The voltages do tend to drop slowly over time (pencil must rub off) as I had it at 1.85 and 3.9 and could run 3dmark though 3 times without artefacts at those speeds.

 

[Randell]

Thanks for the reply Bamber. Aria, ah yes I remember that name being spread around as an 8500 stockist. Sound like Aria received the same kind of card Supergrace did, as your cables and CD are exactly the same as I got.

So you have active cooling om the memeory and nothing extra on the core? hmm I was thinking of adding a crystal orb to help get this core up.

I cant quite remember my inital voltages, though they were low and I've increased them to retail area levels.

Tried again tonight, froze at 280 core again.

 

[Tahir2]

I have the exact Supergrace you have and my core reaches 290MHz memory only at 268MHz though.
Stock cooling but air blowing on it.

 

[Randell]

Misae,

Have you flashed bios or modded the voltage for those scores?

 

[Tahir2]

I did flash the bios initially but it didn't help so I (after much difficulty) flashed back to the OEM bios.
No voltage mods...
Should see me through Doom III

 

[Randell]

the bios flash doesnt help much without doing the pencil trick/voltage mod as its the lack of voltage which inhibits the memory especially, even though it is 3.6ns Ram. Its always going to be hard to get too much out of the core if it was always designated LE by ATI.

 

[Tahir2]

I know.
I decided a while back to not do any pencil tricks or mods involving voltage....call me a coward but really I am quite pleased with the Supergrace Radeon 8500LE ... was £165 from ebuyer.com and for about £175 I almost got a GF3Ti200. I am really glad I didnt though

 

[Randell]

aye, to tell you the truth you are the sensible one here If you kill that card, the Supergrace replacemnt will be inferior now. Non reference design, slower memory, 1 RAMDAC etc.

I have the exact same thought about the Gf3Ti200, I almost bought one, gambeld on the 8500LE and beleive it was the right choice at the time for price/performance.

 

[Z0iCc3Li]

I got my Hercules FDX Radeon 8500LE for about 180$(200euros). I can overclock my card to 295/300(quite good for 4ns memory ) with stock cooling(no ramsinks, and a small skin&fan on the gpu). Only modification I have done is to flash it with retail ati bios(version 7004)

I havent measured what the voltages are on this card, but I'm guessing they are close to the retail spec, since I can overclock so much, and Randell's statement about voltages is correct.

 

[Randell]

Thats pretty damn good for 4ns ram! I put a crystal orb teh other day and got the core stable so far at 290 up from 275 after the bios flash and pencil trick.

So currently at 290/290 from 250/250 I'll review my voltage ina few days see of I can get that 300/300.