Radeons 8500 and 9000

squidthingsquidthing
Posted:
in Genius Bar edited January 2014
I have been studying this for a long time but I am still confused about the difference between these two products.



At first I thought it was simply the output ports and that the Radeon 8550 has VGA, S-Video, and DVI, and the Radeon 9000 has DVI, and ADC. If so then I would want to buy the Radeon 8500, but then I noticed that one has it's own fan, and one just has a heatsink over the processor.



Now, thanks to lots of (possibly unreliable websites) I have seen them described as either 64mb or 128mb and seen them in all sorts of different special edition packaging. Just to make things more confusing, I now can't see the 8500 for sale anywhere! Has it been taken out of production or something?



I would really appreciate your help with this.



Andrew

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 10
    squidthingsquidthing Posts: 124member
    bump
  • Reply 2 of 10
    bilbil Posts: 6member
    If memory serves, there was the Radeon 7000/8500 line, with the 8500 being the high-end card. Then came the 9000/9700 line with the 9000 being the entry level card. Because the cards were targeted at these places in the ATi line-up, the 8500 is actually more powerful than the 9000 even though he 9000 came out later with a higher model number. You could probably get some benchmarks by searching at xlr8yourmac.com
  • Reply 3 of 10
    bilbil Posts: 6member
    Here you go:



    http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/Graphics/Radeon_9700PRO_OEM/



    This review of the 9700 contains numbers for the 9000 and 8500 as well. The 8500 and 9000 are pretty close.
  • Reply 4 of 10
    squidthingsquidthing Posts: 124member
    Thanks,

    Now I have to try and find a Radeon 8500
  • Reply 5 of 10
    soopadrivesoopadrive Posts: 182member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by SquidThing

    Thanks,

    Now I have to try and find a Radeon 8500



    One word.

    Ebay
  • Reply 6 of 10
    squidthingsquidthing Posts: 124member
    Do Ati not make the Radeon 8500 anymore? Is it something I could only get second hand? If it's possible I'd rather buy a new one, all I have to do is convince my family that it's something we need for the computer and then cost isn't so much of an issue



    Andrew
  • Reply 7 of 10
    altivec_2.0altivec_2.0 Posts: 995member
    I would for sure go with a 8500. It's a "more solid" card in terms of performance. I saw a 8500 at macmall the other day, BTW
  • Reply 8 of 10
    squidthingsquidthing Posts: 124member
    Are there seperate Mac and PC Radeons? or are they the same card..

    I have found this but I'm not sure if it's what I'm looking for, the page uses terms (such as powermagic and DDR) that I haven't seen on any other pages.



    Andrew
  • Reply 9 of 10
    mount_my_floppymount_my_floppy Posts: 913member
    I just bought a radeon 8500 recently I know you can still get them. I ordered mine from macmall..
  • Reply 10 of 10
    bartobarto Posts: 2,246member
    You need to get a Mac specific video card. It doesn't have to be this way, but ATi, nVidia and Apple have kept PC cards from running in Macs to keep the Mac card prices high.



    The 9000 and 8500 are pretty similar. I'd go for whatever you can find cheapest.



    Barto
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