Ati Radeon8500 vs 7500

[Newbov420]

I am currently running a amd 850 processor with nVidia 16mb card.
I want to up grade to a 64mb card and have been doing some reading.
ATI Radeons seam to be top of the line. The main difference I see between the 8500 and the 7500 is 100.00$. Ofcoarse their are other differences,most of witch I really don't understand. My question is does anyone have any
experience with either of these cards,pros and cons. I ask the gamers out their because I know ATI wont shoot straight with me!

Thanks in advance
Newbov

[Cirerrek]

I just picked up a new video card Visiontek Geforce3 Ti200, so I did a bit of resarch prior to making the purhcase.

My opinion would be, skip the Radeon 7500 in favor of the Radeon 8500, despite the cost difference. Yes, the Radeon 7500 is improved over the previous line of Radeon cards, but it misses out on a lot of the new technology features supported by the Radeon 8500.

That being said if I wanted to stay in the price range of the Radeon 7500, then the Geforce3 Ti200 would be the way to go because it has all the features of the Geforce3 and Geforce3 Ti500, just with slightly slower memory.

If the ATI Radeon 8500/7500 drivers were more mature, I would have bought the Radeon 8500 over the Geforce3 Ti200, despite the $100 price difference.

Hope that helps.

Cheers,

Cirerrek

[Newbov420]

Yes but a main feature I need is duel monitor support( for flight sim)
does gforce3 support duel monitors?

[Cirerrek]

Dual monitor support wasn't something that I was concerned about in my research, so I can't remember off hand if any of the Geforce cards offer dual monitor support. I suspect some of them do, since if your competitor is offering something good business sense would be to offer the same thing or something better. I think one of the manufactures, does offer the equivalent of a Nvidia All-in-Wonder, but I don't remember who that manufacture is. Matrox is another company that is big into dual monitor support. The general consensus on these boards is that the Matrox cards are exceptional for 2D applications and not so great for 3d gaming. Hopefully someone else can point you in the direction of a good card that supports dual monitors.

Cheers,

Cirerrek

[BeardedClem]

Originally posted by Newbov420
Yes but a main feature I need is duel monitor support( for flight sim)
does gforce3 support duel monitors?
The Radeon 8500 supports dual displays both VGA and DVI for LCD monitors. If you have two regular CRT monitors, you'll need the DVI to VGA adapter which comes with the retail version automatically and also with the OEM version, but if you buy an OEM, get assurance from the vendor you buy it from that they will supply it as some mean ones may cheap out and not include one.

Also, the OEM is clocked at 250MHz versus the 275MHz for the retail. So that's your choice if it matters.

As for the difference between the 7500 and the 8500, the 7500 is a much faster clocked version of the original Radeon whereas the 8500 is a whole new core with many new features-read about them here. (http://www.ati.com/na/pages/products/pc/radeon_8500/index.html) That is probably the better choice even for the higher price if you play 3d games and want something more future proof.