Past EED rants

Labels

Live leaderboard

Poker leaderboard

Voice of EED

Tuesday 21 December 2004

Graphics card bargain of the year [lurks]

Anyone after a decent graphics card would be well advised to take note of this blog. ATI Radeon 9800SE cards have come onto the market and these are essentially the same R350 cores as regular 9800s but 4 of the 8 pipelines are disabled. Some also have memory running at 9800 non-pro rates and some really shitty ones have 128-bit memory interfaces (instead of 256).
There's one card, however, which has become pretty well known of late. It's Hercules' Radeon 9800SE All-In-Wonder (AIW for short) card. This has a 256-bit memory interface and the memory is clocked at Pro rates (340MHz) instead of non-pro (290MHz).
The thing is, you can just head over and get some softmodded drivers which unlock the other 4 pipelines. So whammo, you get an ATI 9800 Pro with a TV tuner, video in and out and an RF remote control for £160. Bargain!
The thing is, the 4 disabled pipes aren't guaranteed to work but they work for most people. If they don't work, return the card under the distance selling regulations and buy a new one. This is madness, I've just replaced the monster card from blog 495 which retailed for £400 with a card worth £160 and it's better in pretty much every way.
They're getting in a little short supply now but these guys have them.

1 comment: