Ati Radeon AIW 8500DV or ATI AIW 9700??

[WayneTeK]

Hmm.. I don't know what i should do.. Should i just buy the AIW Pro from Amazon.com for $173? It offers 64mb of ram, firewire, tv tuner, radio tuner, etc... I'm sure the 9700 will have many many improvements over the previous generation... but it is gonna cost a lot more...

What should i do??
Thanks.

 

[GTaudiophile]

If ATi released the AIW 9700 today, it would cost at leat $500. Who knows, they may wait for the .13mu version of the 9700 before releasing an AIW version. I mean, the AIW components fight for board space and power enough as it is. The biggest improvement to the next-gen AIW card will be a hardware MPEG encoder. I'm sure it will also feature ATi's new anti-aliasing for video streams. You just need to ask yourself if you can wait 4-6 months for the top-of-the-line card and even longer if you want to wait for the price to drop. If you don't encode a lot of DivX, then maybe the AIW 8500 is enough.

 

[WayneTeK]

Hmm.. Thanks for the suggestion... Perhaps the 8500 is suffice? The 9700 sure if awfully gonna be expensive... Guess i can always wait for the price to drop for the 9700 and upgrade to that...

Are there any other cards out there that has all the capabilities in one card such as this wonderful ATI AIW PRO card?

 

[rbV5]

I mean, the AIW components fight for board space and power enough as it is.

There is a power connector and daughter card arraingment for the Rage Theater that should help alleviate both those problems(probably take up both the AGP and PCI#1 slot like the new Fire GL) on the next Gen AIW, but there will likely be quite a wait for the 9700 version. Encoding divx probably won't be any faster on the 9700 anyway even if it does support MPEG hardware encoding, as the Divx codecs will likely not be supported in hardware.

There are several current AIW to choose from, determine exactly what you want to do...and there is likely one that fits your needs.

 

[WayneTeK]

Originally posted by: rbV5

I mean, the AIW components fight for board space and power enough as it is.

There is a power connector and daughter card arraingment for the Rage Theater that should help alleviate both those problems(probably take up both the AGP and PCI#1 slot like the new Fire GL) on the next Gen AIW, but there will likely be quite a wait for the 9700 version. Encoding divx probably won't be any faster on the 9700 anyway even if it does support MPEG hardware encoding, as the Divx codecs will likely not be supported in hardware.

There are several current AIW to choose from, determine exactly what you want to do...and there is likely one that fits your needs.

Words fom a wise person... 🙂 Thanks... I'm 100% sure though, that i need a All in wonder pro version because it suits and meets all my needs... What is this FIRE GL i hear about??? Another version??

 

[ToBeMe]

Here............have fun..............all the ATI AIW & Fire GL's you can handle!😉ATI @ NewEgg................. BTW.............Some of the best prices and one of the best places to shop too........😉

 

[rbV5]

that i need a All in wonder pro version because it suits and meets all my needs... What is this FIRE GL i hear about???

Be carefull calling the 8500dv the "AIW Pro", I own an actual AIW Pro (one of my several AIW cards) its an older 16MB model, they have 8MB and 32MB version's also. Also, there is no "radio tuner" in any AIW card.

The FireGL X1 is a workstation class graphics card based on the 9700 VPU. The link shows a photo with a shot of the daughterboard arraingment I was talking about (It looks VERY similar to the Rage Theater daughterboard VIVO module I saw on a soon to be released 9000 series card, that particular card placed the daughter board much closer to the Maincards PCB, which allowed it to fit fully within the AGP I/O slot) I'm assuming the AIW will take a similar approach as the FireGL, as it will also have to find room for the tuner and perhaps firewire ports?

 

[WayneTeK]

bump

 

[Athlon4all]

Well, the AIW 9700 will from what Anand's said in R9700 articles, it sounds like the AIW 9700 will not be just a R9700 8500DV, it sunds like that there will be some significant enhancements to the video capture/TV Tuner portions of the card (something that hasn't readically changed ever since the original AIW (based around the Rage 128) was released.

EDIT:

ATI will release a new product between now and the end of the year however, a couple new products to be exact. There?s the All-in-Wonder Radeon based on the R300, which will finally bring hardware MPEG-2 encoding to an All-in-Wonder card.

Thats what Anand said at the end of the original R9700 preview

 

[rbV5]

I'd sure like to see a dual head AIW card, that would certainly be some significant enhancement.