Tom's Aquanox review and Radeon 7200?

[Guest]

In Tom's "Aquanox - Bringing 3D To Its Knees" article, he says this:
"...trailed by the RADEON 7200 (the graphics card formerly known as RADEON DDR 64MB ViVo)"

I am confused on this. I'm in the market for a new video card right now, and was considering the Radeon 7200, but I'm shying away from it because ATI's website says the 7200 has 64MB SDRAM, not DDR, and says nothing about VIVO features. Did Tom make a mistake, or are there really DDR VIVO versions of the 7200 out there?

 

[FatBurger]

Apparently there has been an error. The 7200 on Ati's website has SDRAM like you said, but doesn't even HAVE video in (or TV-out, for that matter).

Interestingly, the OEM 7500 has dropped to a mere $97 at Newegg, making it VERY good price/performance-wise.

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[phsstpok]

That does sound like good buy.

What is the memory speed for the OEM Radeon 7500?

<b>We are all beta testers!</b>

 

[AMD_Man]

230MHz DDR (460MHz effective)

AMD technology + Intel technology = Intel/AMD Pentathlon IV; the <b>ULTIMATE</b> PC processor

 

[phsstpok]

Just checked out the OEM 7500 at Newegg. I forgot ATI has allowed other manufacturers to produce OEM cards. The $97- one at Newegg is produce by a company called Sapphire. Customers' comments say the memory is 5.5ns instead of 4ns. The memory clock is 182mhz. At least the GPU clock is still at 250 mhz. Average customer rating is 3 stars out of a possible 5. Doesn't quite sound like the good deal I first thought.

<b>We are all beta testers!</b>

 

[AMD_Man]

Ewwww! 250/182 is awful! The default clock for the Radeon 7500 is 290/230!

AMD technology + Intel technology = Intel/AMD Pentathlon IV; the <b>ULTIMATE</b> PC processor

 

[phsstpok]

Ewwww! 250/182 is awful!

No Sh*t!

I've been a faithful customer of Newegg for a while but I think they dropped the ball on this one. All the links are to official ATI information and ATI's 7500 product page. Even the picture is one of a Retail 7500. There is absolutely no mention of the decreased capability of this OEM card.

One customer claims his OEM 7500, purchased a few months ago, is different and has the 4ns memory. Newegg just calls it an OEM 7500. If it weren't for customer comments no one would ever know that a change has been made.

I guess this gives us a new message. OEM products can be made by multiple manufacturers. Each manufacturer may use different specifications. A vendor can change OEMs at anytime without warning to the customer.

<b>We are all beta testers!</b>

 

[FatBurger]

Don't give up yet!
There's a 7500 "Ultra" with dual monitor support and good clock speeds for sale at $102. I'll find the link, give me a second. It's clocked 270/230 (still not great, but ok), with 4ns RAM.

<A HREF="http://210.66.3.2/web/product_inside.asp?prd_id=BRadeon7500PRO" target="_new">Product link</A>
<A HREF="http://www.pcdirectsource.com" target="_new">Store link</A>

$122.35 shipped

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