ATI Radeon VE - 64bit or 128bit DDR???

[UNCjigga]

Hi guys, I'm building a new system and currently I'm lookin to put in a Leadtek GeForce2 MX-based card. In my current system of have a POS Diamond Viper II (stop laughing at me!) The reason I've kept this card for so long is cuz its got great DVD playback (custom 32-tap filter=better scaling than ATI) and good TV-out (better than what's offered on any nVidia- or 3dfx-based product, comparable to Matrox, not as good as ATI's Rage Theater.)

I noticed that in a couple of weeks ATI will have a new card out known as the ATI Radeon VE. This card is listed as having dual VGA ports (one DVI maybe?) and S-video and composite TV-outs. In addition, it also has 32MB of DDR RAM. They licensed Appian's Hydravision software for dual-display management (simply the best out there!) and yet with all these features the MSRP price (brick&mortar!) is only $129.

For someone like me, who isn't totally dedicated to 3D gaming and doesn't need the fastest out there, this seems like a good card. I'm just curious as to how ATI will pull this off at such a low price point. I'm assuming VE stands for "value-edition". How did ATI cripple this card? Is the DDR memory used 64bit instead of 128 bit (ala CL's Annhilator2 MX?) Is it clocked horribly slow (7ns, 200MHz bus?) What gives here? I can't seem to find any real technical specs on this new Radeon chipset or the card. If anyone has any info as to how this card is not as good as a regular Radeon 32MB board, please post!

 

[Taz4158]

No T&L amongst other things.

 

[UNCjigga]

Dizzamn, looks like you're right! Man, that sucks--I think I'll just go with an MX-based card for now and wait for the Radeon 64MB DDR to drop in price before I upgrade again. After looking more carefully at the 3D features of the Radeon VE, it looks like the entire Charisma Engine has been removed--so no T,C&L engine, and some of the DX8.0 special effects are gone too. I think that will severely cripple this card so I'm gonna pass on it.

 

[DarkMajiq]

The VE and Radeon VE is for Value Edition. What they did is not only 64-bit DDR memory, but they also reduced the number of pixel pipelines from 2 to one, giving it 1/2 the fill rate of the regular card. Read the whole story in this AnandTech article.

 

[Hawk]

Yeah, it's basically a "business" card, so they just provide good 2d, DVD and the ability to play games at maybe 640. Well, and Hydravision (dual monitor) and DVI support too, and TV out.