I'm a little confused about the 9000. Bogus naming aside (both ATI and nVidia do it, 9000 slower than 8500 and those "mx" cards) it seems like the timing is off here bringing out a slower card quite awhile after the 8500 arrived. Then again GF4MX's do sell nicely though I wonder how many of those purchases would be regretted and returned if people realized how un-GF4 the MX is. There it's the GeForce name selling it, Radeon name's not nearly as established and as for people recognizing the "V" in the chip name, well, it seems just as shady without as much chance of success. (IE: "Yeah, I heard how the 9000 series are slower than the 8500's." "But what about this 9700?" "Dunno, buddy told me 9000's are slower so it probably is too") Also the pricing, is removing one one texture unit from each pixel pipeline and thereby reducing core size enough to cut their cost by $40 or whatever? Heck 8500LE's are already under that $129/$109 price cited in Anand's article and the LE's faster in most everything, not to mention the straight 8500's. 8500LE's and GF4MX cards are priced about the same at Newegg already, unless 129/109 means street prices of $95/$70 I don't see how it's going to dent the GF4 anymore than the current lowest cost 8500/LE's.
I hope the 9000 makes ATI a bundle of money in OEM channels, just hate to see it cause the kind of consumer confusion/irritation that haunts companies for years. Kinda like people still bringing up the drivers for their AIW Rage 128s. Unless I'm totally missing some great new benefit of the 9000's which means they've managed to confuse me and my point would still hold...
9700 though, wow. Very nice. Nicely done.
--Mc
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