The Radeon 8500 (64 MB) is a powerful card
althought its age. It's really more powerful than Radeon 9000 or
9200.
And more, it's 100% compatible with Mac OS 9. That fact was
important for me because the Cube is dedicated to my children games
(most of them are old OS 9 games).
The problem is that the Radeon 8500 doesn't fit directly in
the Cube. You have to move the VRM card before.
You can see this modification is on another page.
There is the problem of cooling too.
Yes, the 8500 has a fan, but it is so much noisy that you immediately
want to find another solution.
So, passive or active ccoling? Does the 8500 heat more or less
than the 7500?
The answer is not easy : core of 8500 run slower than 7500
(250 MHz vs 290) but memory runs faster (275MHz vs 230).
I didn't find any answer to that question, so I decided to
make an active cooling : a Coolink Swap heatsink and fan, which fits
exactly in the Cube.
It is glued on the graphic chip and small heatsinks have been put on the
memory chips too.
After some tests I found that the fan was too noisy under 12V
or 7V, and powered it with 5V.
Power was taken on the DVD power.
You can see that 8500 should not have been longer :
You have to modify the faceplate too.
Contrary to Radeon 7500, I made it simple.There remains few
of the faceplate.
The card is fixed only at one side, but it's sufficient. (you
can see the thickness too).
If I wanted to use S-Video I should file a little the body.
Before mounting the card don't forget to protect the head of
that screw.
Final result :
Air coming out is but less than 7500 with it's Zalman. You
can feel a tiny air flow.
Time will show us if it's sufficient.
About noise: it's perfect.
You can't hear the fan. Its noise is covered by the noise of
the main fan. And you can hear that fan only when you put your head
near the Cube; but, as the Cube is under the desk, you hear more the
CRT.
And now you can play Quake 4.
back to Cube
