ATI All In Wonder RADEON 7500

Introduction

"Wonders never cease..." That saying must have been going through the mind of someone from a well-known Canadian company, judging by the result. Just weeks after releasing the All-in-Wonder RADEON 8500 DV , ATi is adding even more wonder to its product line - the ATi All-in-Wonder RADEON 7500.

Instead of using the fast R200 chip, this card is based around the smaller RV200. The RV200 is really nothing more than the original RADEON chip , manufactured on an 0.15µ process with additional Rage Theater functionality incorporated. With the All-in-Wonder, however, this functionality is handled by an extra Rage Theater chip. Of course, the newer card also carries a different feature list than its bigger, more professional sibling. Instead of using a modern chip-tuner, the AIW 7500 still employs an analog component by Philips.

The IEE1394 (Firewire) port was also dropped, most likely for cost reasons. The two cards do share some components, though: the 5nx Samsung memory and the ATi Rage Theater chip, responsible for video capturing and recording, can be found on both boards. While the 64 MB RAM on the AIW 7500 is only clocked at 360 MHz (DDR), the AIW 8500 DV's memory runs at a full 380 MHz (DDR). The R200 chip itself runs at 260 MHz.