read below staright of digit life
The RADEON 9700 Pro was released so much time ago but the 9500 model hasn't yet received a separate PCB or a separate chip. Why? Why did ATI decide to cut the memory size of a RADEON 9700 based card and cut off the chip? Cards based on a 8-layer PCB with a 256-bit bus are quite expensive (as we mentioned in the review on the RADEON 9500). Besides, it uses the same expensive R300.
The analyses of certain information from reliable sources shows that the cost price of such PCBs is not so high anymore, because the production technique is already mastered both by PC Partner (which manufactured all RADEON 9700 Pro in the beginning) and by the partners most of which have already started making such cards and PCBs. As we know, a product goes to the mass market when the expenses on its production become as low as possible. As for the chips... The same sources notify that the production of the VPU R300 is getting stable, that is why the prime cost of them is falling down as the percentage of valid dies grows up.
Therefore, having estimated the benefits of production of separate PCBs and chips, ATI and its partners chose the approach of "Velocity 100", i.e. they assemble the RADEON 9500 on the same 9700 model with the memory chip "shortened". It's possible that they use graphics processors that failed to work at the frequencies specified for the RADEON 9700 Pro, because the 9500 is to be clocked at 275 MHz against 325 MHz of the RADEON 9700 Pro. Though it's also possible that they strip off normal chips. However, even in this case there are a lot of questions to be answered: for example, is such cut-off implemented on the software level or on the hardware one? We'll get back to this issue later.
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And this card comes with the 256-bit interface! That is why the readers should remember this surprise from ATI:
Until they develop a design specially for the RADEON 9500 based cards (and it's probable that they will never do it, because production of cards based on the current design becomes cheaper with time), we should remember that the 64MB and 128MB cards differ only in the memory exchange interface: 128 and 256 bits. This can't help having an effect on the performance, though the VPU is stripped off markedly, and even a 256-bit bus would hardly help the 4-pipeline chip change its speed considerably (but our tests will show that the speed gain is noticeable).
but who would've thought that the 128mb radeon 9500 is almost the exact replica of the 9700, and who would've thought some highly intelligent russian dude wearing fur hats would've figger out how to unlock the sucker while drinking their vodka.
the full story can be viewed at
http://www.digit-life.com/articles2/radeon/sapphire-r9500-128.html
<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by 10GHZ on 01/08/03 01:42 AM.</EM></FONT></P>