a more general question

[georgekellerman]

Hi, I would like to ask a Video RAM question. The 8500GT EU 500M PV-T86J-YAHG GPU-board has a lower clocked memory bus of 667MHz (effective) compared to the nVIDIA specs, which say 800MHz (effective) for the 8500GT GPU.

Is there underclocked DDR2-800 SDRAM or correctly clocked DDR2-667 SDRAM on this board?


:HAS BEEN EDITED: (rest of the post was unimportant)

[westy87]

I assume your inquiring because if the ram is underclocked then its our idea to buy one of those and then get a nice mem overclock out of it? And in answer to ur question no sorry no idea lol. And my guess would be that it was ram meant for the 800+ speed but didnt perform well enough so was underclocked and chucked on lower spec cards. If thats the case then might not overclock so great

[georgekellerman]

The 8500GT EU 500M PV-T86J-YAHG GPU-board has a lower clocked memory bus of 667MHz (effective) compared to the nVIDIA specs, which say 800MHz (effective) for the 8500GT GPU. Is there underclocked DDR2-800 SDRAM or correctly clocked DDR2-667 SDRAM on this board?

:HAS BEEN EDITED: (was unimportant post, therefore replaced by my question in edited original post)

[xfxsupport]

That is a good question, let me see what I can find out.

[werty316]

Just because they are same model doesn't mean they use the same memory chips and that there specs should be the same.

[kiwiplayer]

you were asking about the 8500GT?

the nvidia link to 8500GT (http://www.nvidia.com/object/geforce_8500.html)
the speeds are
GPU clock 450
shader clock 900
memory clock 400 (not 800)

the XFX link (http://xfxforce.com/web/product/listConfigurations.jspa;jsessionid=a7fPiLz6Ng4-gZYnpx?series=GeForce%26trade%3B+8500&seriesId=1054322&productId=1115018)
the order of cards changed when i refreshed the page :S
going by the original order:

first card is (PV-T86J-UAL3)
450/983/800 so the shader is O/C'd by 83Mhz and the ram is twice the stock speed but only 256Mb.

second card is (PV-T86J-YAL3)
450/983/533 the shader is again 83Mhz faster but the memory is only 133Mhz faster but it is 512Mb.

third is (PV-T86J-UAHG)
500/1096/667 so now the GPU is 50Mhz faster, shader is 196Mhz faster and the memory is 267Mhz faster and is 256Mb.
the XFX site is incorrectly stating 512Mb. the code U is 256MB while the code Y is 512Mb.
do a google search (http://www.google.co.nz/search?hl=en&q=PV-T86J-UAHG&btnG=Google+Search&meta=) if you dont believe me :D

fourth is (PV-T86J-YAHG)
the same specs as the third but has 512Mb ram

so as you can see, with all the cards, they are running either stock speeds or faster

[georgekellerman]

Yes, the 8500GT.

No. For the RAM clock the nVIDIA specs define a 400MHz real clock, which is an 800MHz effective clock (DDR RAM!). This means that the nVIDIA 8500GT specs are 450/900/400(800). The cards look like this:

8500GT US 450M PV-T86J-UAF3: 256MB DDR2, active cooling, 450/983/400(800)
8500GT EU 450M PV-T86J-UAL3: 256MB DDR2, active cooling, 450/983/400(800)
8500GT US 500M PV-T86J-UAHG: 256MB DDR2, passive cooling, 500/1096/333(667), HDCP
8500GT EU 500M PV-T86J-UAHG: 256MB DDR2, passive cooling, 500/1093/333(667), HDCP

8500GT US 450M PV-T86J-YAF3: 512MB DDR2, active cooling, 450/983/266(533)
8500GT EU 450M PV-T86J-YAL3: 512MB DDR2, active cooling, 450/983/266(533)
8500GT US 500M PV-T86J-YAHG: 512MB DDR2, passive cooling, 500/1096/333(667), HDCP
8500GT EU 500M PV-T86J-YAHG: 512MB DDR2, passive cooling, 500/1096/333(667), HDCP

8500GT US 500M F1 PV-T86J-Y1S3: 512MB DDR2, passive cooling, 500/1093/425(850), HDCP
8500GT EU 500M F1 PV-T86J-Y1S3: 512MB DDR2, passive cooling, 500/1093/425(850), HDCP

[kiwiplayer]

my bad :D
i just read both sites saying "memory speed", i didnt take into account XFX might mean effective speed while Nvidia meant real clock.

[georgekellerman]

Thank you XFXsupport for your offer to find it out.

Since the US/EU 8500GT 500M F1s very much seem to have DDR2-800 SDRAM with their 425(850) RAM clockings, it now comes down to this single board I would like to know about its SDRAM:

8500GT EU 500M PV-T86J-YAHG (512MB DDR2, passive cooling, 500/1096/333(667), HDCP)

Does this board have DDR2-667 SDRAM (correctly) clocked at 333(667)? Or does it have DDR2-800 SDRAM (under-)clocked at 333(667)?

Many thanks again.

:)

[georgekellerman]

EDIT:

I wrote here that I'm disappointed about XFX not answering my pre-purchase question. But since this forum is not an official XFX forum my post has no point here.

[Miker]

XFX is has the best support of any company.

8500GT US 500M F1 PV-T86J-Y1S3: 512MB DDR2, passive cooling, 500/1093/425(850), HDCP
8500GT EU 500M F1 PV-T86J-Y1S3: 512MB DDR2, passive cooling, 500/1093/425(850), HDCP

It tells you right there "512MB DDR2".

[ghidora]

You have to realize that this is not XFX's official site. This is a hardware review site that happens to be sponsored by XFX. Have you tried communicating with XFX from their site (www.xfxforce.com) ?

[tyle6]

I would also like to point out that the same chips are not always used on the same cards even. one batch may use samsung chips and the next hynix.
If you want to know what chips are on what card read a review of that card. and dont hold them to the card you get having the same chips.
Not to mention this is a LOW LOW end card and only use's DDR2 anyways, why are you soo worried about what chips are on this card? getting a few hundred MHZ ouuta the memory aint gonna do **** for its performance. the rams bottlenecked by the buswidth aswell the GPU

[georgekellerman]

Thanks for the discussion. I'll try to reply to everything as good as I can. First, I edited my last post, because the atmosphere here shouldn't suffer from my disappointment about XFX's support not answering my pre-purchase question, if what is done here is not official XFX support. I indeed thought that this is the case. Now I know that it's not. I apologize for that!

OK, to answer your questions: Of course I tried to get support from XFX. No useful answers, just general lines that didn't solve anything. I also believe those who say that XFX has the best support of all GPU-board companies. I'm sure that the customers get great support from XFX. It's only me who simply had bad luck. A few months ago it took weeks to de-register a board I returned. And now it takes weeks to get answers about another product. I see myself how well XFX support works, so I'm not disappointed in XFX support in general. I know that it just didn't go well for me. And I don't want to buy by another brand at all, because I like the XFX boards. It's just that I want to know things before I buy. If XFX would simply reply that those answers aren't for the public, then I wouldn't say anything. But no answers and simple general answers that are none are a little disappointing in my oppinion. With that now they almost have driven me into buying other company's boards. And I don't like that idea at all.

I didn't want to know how many MB or what DDR generation the Video RAM has/is. Not only XFX hasn't read my question, but some to all members at this forum haven't my post either. This is a new disappointment, I thought that we here are excited about XFX boards. It's clearly written down, that I wonder wether those two models (PV-T86J-YAHG and PV-T86J-Y1S3) have DDR2-667 or DDR2-800 SDRAM respectively. I also saw they factory VRAM clockings. But, as said, I would like to know if those two boards have DDR2-667 or DDR2-800 RAM actual chips on board. Originally I had more questions to XFX about those two boards (DDR2 or GDDR2, CL5 or CL4, HDCP GPU + HDCP ROM chip on the board or just HDCP GPU and no HDCP ROM chip on the board, ...), but that wouldn't work for me I guess...

"Low low end" boards comment: What if I'm not interested in 3D performance but good hardware accelerated HD AVC video playback with post processing (like good de-interlacing). 8600GT and 8600GTS have the same performance in that field of video processing. The 8400GS has not, it's weaker. I DID read the reviews! And why did I choose 512MB with the 8500GT, which does little to 3D with an 8500GT (I DID read the reviews!)? Because VideoRAM size on the other hand is much more relevant for that field of video processing. So why should I buy an 8600GT or even an 8600GTS with DDR3 for HD AVC post-processing. 8500GT@450MHz + 512MB DDR2-800@800MHz is a great board for that. It's the nVIDIA specs for great AVC (only 8500GT@450MHz + 256MB DDR2-800@800MHz actually!). Now the point: I don't want any kind of overclocking. I DON'T want to buy a board that I have to overclock to those 800MHz VRAM specs, and it would be overclocking on the PV-T86J-YAHG, if that card had only DDR2-667 SDRAM (but I don't know, because no answer). Nor do I want to buy one that is factory overclocked to the 800MHz VRAM specs, and it would be factory overclocking on the PV-T86J-Y1S3, if that card had only DDR2-667 SDRAM (but I don't know, because no answer). I would like to buy one which has DDR2-800@800MHz SDRAM on board and not just factory or user overclocked DDR2-667@800MHz SDRAM.

[xfxsupport]

I have had to digging around to get the specs of what is on those cards.

Both of these cards currently use DDR2 800 chips onboard:

PV-T86J-YAHG
PV-T86J-Y1S3

So for the YAH the memory is currently running slower than manufacturer specs, and for the Y1S3 it has been overclocked by 50mhz.

Now that is based off what we have currently manufactured (I pulled the 2 cards and took a look at the chips to verify myself). The chips on the cards however could change in the future depending on supply of memory chips in the market, and the only guarentee I can make is the cards will work at the advertised speeds.

[georgekellerman]

Thank you very very much! In a few days I will have a brand new XFX 8500GT in my brand new PC! :) :)