radeon 7500 or the AIW ?

[SupaMan2387]

should i buy the radeon 7500 for 95 or wait for the 7500 aiw? which instore i think it is 200 but no one has it, but we saw one at bestbuy and my friend wtf this isnt suppose to be here yet

 

[nRollo]

This may be a silly question, but why would you have to wait for something you saw in the store?
Anyway, the AIW cards are usually clocked a bit lower.

 

[SupaMan2387]

no i wouldnt buy it in store but i was sayin that we saw one there

 

[bunnyfubbles]

Even if the AIW boards are clocked a bit lower, the non AIW 7500s are usually OEM boards with LE chipsets and are underclocked themselves. Besides, benchmarks show a very small gap in performance between the retail 7500 and the retail AIW 7500...

Both boards should offer similar gaming performance, so the question here is whether or not the extra features are worth the extra money.

 

[PCHPlayer]

I went and spent the $200 for the AIW 7500. Yeah, Yeah I know I could have waited and gotten it on-line for less (when the on-line retailers finally get them). I had a driver issue with Win 98, but an upgrade to Win XP solved the problems. Excellent 2D and good (not great) in games. It's got plenty of horsepower for the games I play. Go check out Tom's review of this card. You will see the AIW is only slightly slower than the non-AIW.

To answer your question... For $95 you are going to get a Power Color OEM card. The retailers don't make this obvious on price watch or even on some web site. A "Built by ATI" will run about $120 and an ATI retail is $150. You make the call.