Radeon 8500 Review

I did that too (Roughly same time).

But I got the 8500 nehow when it came out in the UK.....

I find that the easiest way to stay bleeding (From your wallet) edge is to sell on the stuff you use up...

Cause ur top of the range card now, is a high end middle card when you upgrade, some selective shopping and its not such a loss.

One thing I suggest for the 64DDR ViVo is a DVR machine, the quality is amzing... Ok so you need a powerful CPU but with TV out it is a video recorder... Add in a custom made remote (A little bit of circuitry, IR or radio, check out the maplins projects for an expample.. - A converter than writes to a serial port and a visual menu that reads the serial port..) and you have a DVD player, CD player, video recorder.. .ANd the main purpose, cable modem NAT and firewall. All in an under the TV box...

 

Do you think an athlon 1.4 would be good enough?

 

It does pretty ok on a 1Gig TBird recording locally... (<1% frames dropped - but the recorded resolution was smaller than full screen, about TV quality I think..)

But I think I will have to use a much faster chip for better quality recordings (I have digital cable so get very good quality signal and vcrs drive me up the wall with their naff quality) you can vary the quality of the recording, and the level of compression thus reducing load on the chip. Its all a trade off..


I am figuring on a water-cooled box (To match the 1.5 watercooled boxes upstairs..) under the TV since it needs to be powerful... Plus u can play games on 34" of widescreen goodness..
Note: Mine is not currently DVR since it is soooo ugly, am looking at a curved smoked perspex enclosure then it can site in the living room..

Z.