8500LE comparable to what 9xxx?

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Nostrobino

I am totally confused by ATI's model numbers. I have an 8500LE now and like
it very much, am considering upgrading and am wondering how the various 9xxx
cards compare to this one. I realize the 8500LE does not have hardware
support for DirectX 9, but just comparing DirectX 8 performance, what 9xxx
would be closest to this?

Any and all opinions much appreciated.
 
Nostrobino said:
I am totally confused by ATI's model numbers. I have an 8500LE now and like
it very much, am considering upgrading and am wondering how the various
9xxx
cards compare to this one. I realize the 8500LE does not have hardware
support for DirectX 9, but just comparing DirectX 8 performance, what 9xxx
would be closest to this?
Click to expand...

The Radeon 9100 is the same thing as the 8500LE. Both have R200 core, 4
pipelines, 2 TMU per pipeline. 250Mhz core, 250Mhz memory. Many of the 128Mb
9100's have 200Mhz memory. I used to have a 128Mb 9100, the core would
overclock easily to 275Mhz (full 8500 spec) but the 200Mhz memory would only
do 225 max without artifacting. It's still better than any 9000 or 9200
series, which have somewhat higher core/memory, but have one of the TMU
units stripped out on the 4 pipelines. I sold it for a 128Mb 8500 which
easily did 300/300 with no issues. Until I played Thief3....then it was
upgrade time.
 
It wouldn't be worth upgrading to anything less than a 9600xt, and I'd
recommend going to a 256bit 9800pro.

Mike
 
Augustus said:
The Radeon 9100 is the same thing as the 8500LE. Both have R200 core, 4
pipelines, 2 TMU per pipeline. 250Mhz core, 250Mhz memory. Many of the 128Mb
9100's have 200Mhz memory. I used to have a 128Mb 9100, the core would
overclock easily to 275Mhz (full 8500 spec) but the 200Mhz memory would only
do 225 max without artifacting. It's still better than any 9000 or 9200
series, which have somewhat higher core/memory, but have one of the TMU
units stripped out on the 4 pipelines. I sold it for a 128Mb 8500 which
easily did 300/300 with no issues. Until I played Thief3....then it was
upgrade time.
Click to expand...

Thanks, Augustus. Just what I wanted to know.

N.
 
Mike said:
It wouldn't be worth upgrading to anything less than a 9600xt, and I'd
recommend going to a 256bit 9800pro.
Click to expand...

Thanks, Mike. I appreciate the advice.

N.
 
Nostrobino said:
Thanks, Mike. I appreciate the advice.
Click to expand...

One more thing to consider: how about your other setup? If your system was
in balance with the 8500LE, then you might not want to spend $$ for a
9800Pro as your game performance would be severely limited by your other
hardware. If you think updating later (say in six months), you'd probably
better hold the vidcard upgrade, unless you find someone selling their
previously owned 9500 or better very cheap. If you get the 9800Pro now, you
possibly won't get (all) the benefits until you upgrade the rest of your HW
but when you do that the 9800Pro will probably be history already... So,
think about it twice considering what I have blabbered here. Hope you got
the idea...
 
np :-)
Gin Tonix has a good point, you should have a cpu equal to an AMD xp1600+ or
P4 2G or so (I'm not into Intel anymore, I know the first p$'s were crap -
1.5g and such, but I think the northwoods were good, whatever speed they
started at).
A buddy of mine just put a 9800pro in an xp1800 and it works nice, good
upgrade from an nvidia gf4400 (which is a fair amount faster than the
8500le).

Mike
 
GinTonix said:
One more thing to consider: how about your other setup? If your system was
in balance with the 8500LE, then you might not want to spend $$ for a
9800Pro as your game performance would be severely limited by your other
hardware. If you think updating later (say in six months), you'd probably
better hold the vidcard upgrade, unless you find someone selling their
previously owned 9500 or better very cheap. If you get the 9800Pro now, you
possibly won't get (all) the benefits until you upgrade the rest of your HW
but when you do that the 9800Pro will probably be history already... So,
think about it twice considering what I have blabbered here. Hope you got
the idea...
Click to expand...

Yes, and that's a good thought. Thanks.

I have too many computers. (Is it just me, or do other people who enjoy
putting the darn things together wind up with too many computers too?) And I
am forever rebuilding, swapping parts around from one machine to another,
according to what I think goes best with what (at the moment). I change my
mind about all this fairly regularly. :-)

What I think I am going to do now is move the 8500LE (which is in a machine
that's mostly apart at the moment) into a microATX system with an Athlon XP
1700+, which I think will be a pretty good match CPU-wise. Eh? The card
presently in that system I want to move to another machine anyway. Your
advice sounds good to me, and I'll hold off on the 9500 or better card for a
while, since I'm not running anything that requires DX9 now anyway.

Thanks again.

N.
 
Mike P said:
np :-)
Gin Tonix has a good point, you should have a cpu equal to an AMD xp1600+ or
P4 2G or so (I'm not into Intel anymore, I know the first p$'s were crap -
1.5g and such, but I think the northwoods were good, whatever speed they
started at).
A buddy of mine just put a 9800pro in an xp1800 and it works nice, good
upgrade from an nvidia gf4400 (which is a fair amount faster than the
8500le).
Click to expand...

Thanks, Mike. I think my hardware is good enough; I'm running Athlon XPs in
just about everything. But I will probably hold off on anything close to a
9800 Pro for a while as I just don't feel the need for that much graphics
power yet. My high-end machine is (or will be when I get around to finishing
it) an Athlon XP 2400+ with a GeForce4 Ti 4200, which should meet my needs
for a while. The most demanding games I'll be running are probably Morrowind
and Comanche 4.

N.
 
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