ATI 8500 vs ATI 9000 vs ATI 9700

[Kyon]

Anyone know the difference between all three cards? I know the 9700 is ATI's top of the line card, but how about the difference between the 8500 vs. 9000? The ATI 8500 was the old champ but it seems like the ATI 9000 is a consumer version of the ATI 9700. Does this mean the ATI 8500 is still better/faster or can the ATI 9000 hold it's own? I was planning to wait and buy an ATI 8500 once OS X 10.2 was released hoping the price would drop down but it seems like the ATI 9000 will be evenly priced with the ATI 8500. Any ideas or suggestions would be greatly appreciated ...

[Fahrvergnuugen]

check out http://www.barefeats.com and http://www.xlr8yourmac.com and see if they have any benchmarks for these different cards. i have two radeons, but i dont even know which model they are. probably 8500s.... [32mb of ram and they are almost a year old]

[Annihilatus]

If your cards have 32 mb on them, I would assume they were either Radeon 7500, 7000 or the first-ever Radeon. 8500's as far as I know have 64MB and 128MB models only.

Andre

[pianophile]

>Anyone know the difference between all three cards?

The 9700 will be the new top-of-the-line ATI consumer card when it is released; the 9000 will be the budget model. I would recommend avoiding the older 8500 unless the price goes very low (like under $100), otherwise I would find it hard to justify investing in "last year's model". The 9000 will be reasonably priced, faster than a Geforce 4MX (according to ATI anyway), will have a Mac model in a dual-head ADC/DVI configuration (a first for a non-Apple-OEM card), but sadly only has 64MB of memory (split between two displays this may get a little thin). It's hard to say much about the 9700 yet; personally I am waiting for the 9700, the Geforce 5, and some benchmarks comparing the two.

[keyizm]

doesn't the ATI 8500 come with 64MB of RAM as well? what's the connector difference between the 8500 & 9000? i'd like to be able to plug up a 2nd 19" CRT (i have the standard 17" CRT that comes with a G4 Sawtooth) without investing to much in adapters. does anyone know which card provides the cheapest solution? if the 8500 is more expensive than the 9000, does that mean it's better/faster? if it wasn't, why would it cost more, no?