AIW8500dv to AIW9800 upgrade

  • Thread starter Thread starter Dave
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Dave

Thinking about upgrading to the 9800AIW and have a few questions:

1. any differences in the video capture capabilities?
2. is the tuner any better in the newer card?
3. not a heavy gamer, but how much better will games look?
4. any other features that make this worthwhile?

TIA,
dave
 
Dave said:
Thinking about upgrading to the 9800AIW and have a few questions:

1. any differences in the video capture capabilities?
Click to expand...

yes, the 9800 has the theatre200 chip for better vid capping.
2. is the tuner any better in the newer card?
Click to expand...

it's analog not digital. the diff? cheaper and less heat according to
ati
3. not a heavy gamer, but how much better will games look?
Click to expand...

well if you're not a heavy gamer...
 
Kev said:
yes, the 9800 has the theatre200 chip for better vid capping.


it's analog not digital. the diff? cheaper and less heat according to
ati


well if you're not a heavy gamer...
Click to expand...

Okay, okay....let's not talk about weight, okay?? ;-)
However, I AM interested in how good games will look. Will it look a little
better than my 8500 or a LOT better??

dave
 
-
Dave stood up at show-n-tell, in [email protected],
and said:
Okay, okay....let's not talk about weight, okay?? ;-)
However, I AM interested in how good games will look. Will it look a
little better than my 8500 or a LOT better??
Click to expand...

Depends on the rest of the system. If your memory and cpu choke, your
framerates will suck.
 
The tuner on the 8500DV (at least the one on mine) is absolutely
terrible because it's sensitivity is so high--sometimes I feel like
trying to pick up Tokyo with rabbit ears (I'm in Connecticut) will
overdrive it--the 9800_has_ to be better. The analog tuner in my old
Radeon AIW (before they started giving them numbers) is much better--if
they went back to that type of tuner you should see noticeable
improvement.
Okay, okay....let's not talk about weight, okay?? ;-)
However, I AM interested in how good games will look. Will it look a
little better than my 8500 or a LOT better??
Click to expand...

That's going to depend on the game and the game designer. DirectX 8
games should look about the same, maybe a little better because the
faster board lets you turn up the eye-candy. DirectX 9 games
potentially can be pretty spectacular.
 
Depends on the rest of the system. If your memory and cpu choke, your
framerates will suck.
Click to expand...

I have a 1.8 gig P4 on an Asus P4T-E mobo with a gig of of Rambus RAM. It
ain't great,
but it's all I have for now. Besides, I thought the videocard and its memory
had a greater
impact on framerates than the supporting system. No?

dave
 
-
Dave stood up at show-n-tell, in [email protected],
and said:
I have a 1.8 gig P4 on an Asus P4T-E mobo with a gig of of Rambus
RAM. It ain't great,
but it's all I have for now. Besides, I thought the videocard and its
memory had a greater
impact on framerates than the supporting system. No?
Click to expand...

Unfortunately, no. It's proportional. It's all about bottlenecks. You do
have RAMBus which is a 'definite' plus. But, even then, it does not compare
to today's DDR. The thing that makes me skeptical is your processor. It's,
most likely, 533MHz FSB at most. And, not Hyperthreaded....

You WILL see an increase with the new vid card... Just don't be surprised,
when the rest of your system becomes a bottleneck.
 
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