Radeon 8500DV 64mb or Radeon 8500 128mb?

[S13SilviaK]

I'm gonna' get one of these two cards now that there is the killer rebate from ATI, question is does the 128mb version really warrant the extra $50, the only differences I find are the extra ram on board, 275/275 mem speed, and it's missing the DV port. How much difference is the mem clock going to make in game performance? if it's just a few frames at 1600 x 1200 then I could care less but if it's somewhere in the neighborhood of 10-20 frames at 800x600 then it's obviously a big deal.

I just wanted some input before I commited myself.

For reference I am currently running a Geforce 3 Ti200 so that's where I'm coming from.

 

[hcarlson]

You're talking about a pretty big difference!

Card: AIW Radeon 8500 ----- Radeon 8500dv
Clock: 275/275 ----------------- 230/190
Mem: 3.3ns --------------------- ??? something slower probably
------- 128mb -------------------- 64mb

The gap in memory speeds is huge! And most likely makes a big difference.

 

[S13SilviaK]

Well I know a few reviewers have O/C the 8500dv to 275/230 speeds which would close the gap, and after checking out the reviews both cards are apparently faster than my current Ti200, so atleast I'll see a speed improvement.

 

[DougK62]

Where can I find this rebate at? I looked on the ATI webpage and can't find it anywhere. Thanks!

 

[SteelCityFan]

Rebate might come in the box.. but here is a story I found quick on it..

http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/54/24972.html

http://www.hardwarecentral.com/hardwarecentral/news/4162/1/

 

[S13SilviaK]

Sorry I was setting up my CPU for Tri-boot...woohoo! Win 98SE/XP/Linux

Nonetheless here's the link to the forum post.

ATI Rebate Program

It's an awesome deal, we can get the 8500DV for $200+shipping when newegg is selling the refurbed for $199. Can't beat that. I think the 8500 128mb model may be the better deal but it's missing the DV port and it's $50 more. That's what I'm trying to decide on right now, the card is suppost to be much faster but I don't know.

 

[FuzzyBee]

Do both of these have the same tuner? It appears (from the pics I've seen) that the 128MB has the old version (same as the old AIW Radeon and the AIW 7500), while the DV has the "tuner-on-a-chip" that tunes a whole lot faster...

 

[S13SilviaK]

Well I'll just be feeding it my Sat connection so the point is mute, but if that's true that would make the 128 version less appealing, at least to me.

 

[FuzzyBee]

Per Stephen Orr from ATI:



<< The AIW 8500 (128 Meg) uses a Philips MK3 tuner, which is NOT a "tuner-on-a-chip" but is a newer tuner than the one found on earlier AIW cards. >>



Good?? Bad?? I guess that is a personal call.