Graphics Cards

W

Will

Guest
OK, I'm knocking around ideas for a new system, but I've had a sudden attack of budget, and I'm looking to save a few pennies. List so far...
  • ABit KR7A-RAID
  • Athlon XP 1800+
  • 2x256 DDR RAM PC2100 CAS2.5
I've got a bit stuck at the graphics card stage. I was going for a Radeon 8500, since I can't afford a Leadtek card, and I like my crisp 2D. Then I saw the 8500LE for £60 less (£150 instead or £210), only difference being a drop of 25MHz in core/memory clock. I've not been shopping around yet either, might be able to get them cheaper.

What I want to know is, is the difference in price worth it. Which one should I go for? And can you see anywhere else to cut corners? I'm going to put in my Soundblaster 5.1 Live!, some network card or other, and all the drives are taken care of. Any input appreciated.
 
X

xane

Guest
If you're looking to save money why get a RAID mobo ? You only need to spend more on the HDDs ?!
 
W

Will

Guest
Ah, the difference is about £10, and I have 2 HDD, a DVD and a CD-RW already. Though It is under consideration.
 
S

Summo

Guest
Just a question... why are you going for two strips of only 256MB, rather than one strip of 512MB?

According to Abit
Supports 6 banks up to 3GB DRAMs for unbuffered DDR/SDR modules
Supports 8 banks up to 3.5GB DRAMs for registered DDR/SDR modules
Click to expand...
Seems a bit of a waste to use up two slots on a relatively low amount of memory.
 
W

Will

Guest
Well, I can't see me getting above 1gig of memoy for a good while, shaves off £10. The idea is to bring it all in for £600 or as close as.
 
W

Will

Guest
  • Abit KR7A-133 - £90.00
  • AMD Athlon XP 1700+ - £90.00
  • Zalman Flower - £29.80
  • Crucial 512MB DDR PC2100 CAS-2.5 - £112.00
  • ATI Radeon 8500 LE 64MB DDR - £128.00
  • Subtotal: £449.80
  • VAT: £78.72
  • Total: £528.52
Looking a bit easier to handle. Any more comments? (apart from an "I told you so" from Summo;))
 
X

xane

Guest
2 sticks are better than 1, if you have a RAM failure it is easy to detect, very unlikely both sticks will fail together.
 
F

FuZor

Guest
True, however if you want to save cash, just get 256! For gaming its ample :) nice and cheap! Then later when u got the readies, and will actually need/use 512 all ya got ta do is purchase another 256 :D

Sorted

Maybe u could go for the full blown 8500???
 
B

bodhi

Guest
8500LE is slightly slower in benchmarks. Make sure it is made by ATi tho, as a lot of Taiwanese vendors seem to be clocking them down to 230/230. The normal LE can be overclcocked to retail speeds also iirc.
 
S

Summo

Guest
Originally posted by Quicksolv
True, however if you want to save cash, just get 256! For gaming its ample :) nice and cheap! Then later when u got the readies, and will actually need/use 512 all ya got ta do is purchase another 256 :D ??
Click to expand...

Dammit, no! 512MB is the minimum I'd use nowadays. I noticed a huge performance increase when I jumped from 256 to 512. Loading games became much faster, as did closing games and returning to Windows.
 
W

Will

Guest
Well, I'm running 512 SDR at the moment, and don't want an upgrade to be a downgrade.
The benchmarks for the 8500LE aren't too much lower than the 8500, certainly with the price being £60 lower, it doesn't seem like such a bad deal. As to overclockability, it's not guarenteed. I can't take it back if it doesn't reach 8500 speeds, so I'm not going to rely on that.
 
T

Testin da Cable

Guest
Originally posted by SomeGuy


Dammit, no! 512MB is the minimum I'd use nowadays. I noticed a huge performance increase when I jumped from 256 to 512. Loading games became much faster, as did closing games and returning to Windows.
Click to expand...

*cough* *cough*
 
X

Xavier

Guest
heh, if you're using XP go for 1Gb, I did and pretty much all loading is instantaneous from my ata-100 raid array :D
 
T

Trem

Guest
I believe the radeon 8500 has dropped in price now anyway, try www.ctdl.co.uk download there price list Itchy. I think its about £180 now.
 
H

Happy Go Lucky

Guest
Originally posted by Xavier
heh, if you're using XP go for 1Gb, I did and pretty much all loading is instantaneous from my ata-100 raid array :D
Click to expand...

I haven't got RAID, but my understanding is that it allows 2 hard disks to appear as one,

what are the advantages of this, compared to having a slave harddisk, will that appear as a seperate non-bootable drive letter in windows.?

Thanks
 
P

PR.

Guest
Hmm, I always quite fancied setting up a RAID was looking at 2x Seagate 60Gb drives with the Adaptec raid controller.

Tis a bit too expensive tho, atm my wish list is growing but my wages are staying the same. :(

BTW Anyone seen the Gainward GF4 4600 instock in any uk sites?

Thanks :)
 
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