Hi Mark Knight:
___The “LE†uses the same chipset as the VIVO’s, PCI’s, retails, 7000’s, 7200’s, and 7500’s. The “VE’s†and 7000’s have the lower frequency DAC’s so the “Retails, “LE’sâ€, 7200’s, and 7500’s come highly recommended. The difference between the last 4 is core and memory clocks as well as types of memory used and output filtering.
___As far as the flash is concerned; it will not help the display quality one bit. With Powerstrip giving us all of the lost 3D features as well as core and memory clocks if you want, there is no reason to flash an “LE†or OEM anything nowadays. Even the ATI retail drivers can be fixed to install on an OEM card with Ashley’s (coder of PowerStrip) little inf trick from the retail drivers themselves if you are having trouble in this regard. I have read that the retail 8500’s memory latencies are more stable than the OEM’s but the voltage applied to the retails are higher for a more stable high frequency clock setup as well.
___Good Luck
___Wayne R. Gerdes
___Hunt Club Farms Landscaping Ltd.
___
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