ATI Radeon 32MB DDR @ Best Buy

[NiNe]

Trolling the B&M stores last night, found two deals.

1) Best Buy had the 32MB DDR Radeon (no TIVO) for $199, $169 after their exclusive rebate -- which expires on the 30th.

2) CompUSA has 50-packs of their discontinued 2x CD-RWs for $9.99. I got two boxes. Works fine in my CD-RW which only does 2x anyway...

 

[tboner]

Can anyone confirm this?

 

[snuggy]

I can - bought one on the way home from work - saw the post by NiNe at lunch.

Thanks NiNe !!!

 

[snuggy]

I can - bought one on the way home from work - saw the post by NiNe at lunch.

Thanks NiNe !!!

Sorry - browser again...

 

[NiNe]

You're welcome, Snuggy! I found it hard to believe too, tboner. I was just looking at the exact same card last week when it was $249/$279 before rebate.

I checked online and found that the best price was $215 for a retail box on Pricewatch. Buy.com has it for $224 (free shipping).

Must be some special promotion. I can't remember the last time Best Buy could beat the online vendors on price. Plus their exclusive rebate.

 

[Dogcatcher]

Confirmed!...I bought one tonight. It was still marked at $279.99 on the shelf so I had a guy do a price verification. They also have a great return policy of 30 days.

 

[GetInMyFatBelly]

Now when is the Radeon All-In-Wonder 32MB card comming out?

 

[mikebill]

Got to change my card now.
One thing about best buy, their online shop is terrible. I once ordered sth online 'cause I was using their GC and chose picking up in store. 3 out of 4 of their CSR in store don't understand how that works. Waited over 20 min for their manager guy to sort this out.

 

[Hosea]

Maybe this is a stupid question but is the exclusive rebate instant or mail-in?

 

[WageSlave]

Yes, I would seriously like to know too, is this rebate mail in, or instant? Also, how does the radeon stand up to the GEforce2 MX?

 

[WageSlave]

Also, how would that radeon be in a celery 366 clocked to 550? Would it be a better choice than a geforce 2 MX, for a system like this? Are there any other good deals on CDR's right now?

 

[bannor11]

Has anyone else purchased the card? Sounds like a great deal, especially if the rebate is an instant-rebate. Is this only for certain Bestbuys or all of them?

 

[NiNe]

The rebate is mail-in and it prints out at the cash register, right after your receipt. In fact, it automatically prints out along with a rebate receipt. The cashier had no idea there was a rebate.

As far as I know, this is national. Dogcatcher is in the Midwest and I'm in Boston.

As far as comparisons to the GeForce MX, here's my take -

Radeon will be slower in 16-bit. Radeon will be much faster in 32-bit as it's 32-bit performance is only about 5-10% slower than it's 16-bit, whereas MX is often up to 50% slower (at higher res especially.) Remember the MX is SDR and the Radeon is DDR.

Check the benchmarks here at Anandtech, or Sharky's, or Firingsquad. But when making comparisons, be sure to remember that the Radeon 32MB boards (all) and all Radeon OEMs are clocked to 166 MHz, not 183 MHz like the 64 MB retail boards (which are used in many of the benchmarks).

Also, the Radeon will even sometimes outperform (high-res 32-bit) a GeForce 2 with DDR because of the bandwidth-saving HyperZ technology.

Overall, I'd put it ahead of the GeForce2 MX, the GeForce 256 SDR and DDR, but behind the full-fledged GeForce 2.

 

[NiNe]

Over on Firingsquad, in their Duron 1Gz Graphics card shoot-out, the numbers came up like this:

Quake3 HQ 1024x768
GF2 GTS 90.9
Radeon 78.1 (would be slightly lower on a 32MB board)
GF DDR 67.7
V5 67.6
GF2 MX 53.2
GF SDR 51

Quake3 Normal 1024x768
GF2 GTS 122.8
V5 93.7
Radeon 83.9
GF DDR 83.5
GF2 MX 81.1
GF SDR 75.3


In either case, Radeon comes out ahead of all GeForce cards except the GF2 GTS. With the 32MB board clocked at 166 instead of 183 MHz, it would probably come up just shy of a GF2 MX in 16-bit. Notice that going from 16-bit to 32-bit, the Radeon loses less than 6 fps, while the MX loses almost 30.

 

[rigor2]

that kinda blows. the DDR Geforce i bought for $120 will probably smoke the radeon at best buy cause i have a socket 7 sink/cooler and it runs at 130/330.

hmm
might not be worth it unless it came with vivo

 

[tr0dd_]

Keep in mind that the Radeon has better 2D quality and DVD support. That in my mind is worth much more than extra fps (which is above 60 fps already)that the GeForce GTS offers in Quake3 (and does so by using crappy texture comp/decomp).

 

[NiNe]

rigor2,

$120 for a DDR GeForce is quite a bargain. Where did you get that?

However, the 330 RAM kind of misleading -- it is really 166 DDR -- i.e. the same as the Radeon. In those kind of terms, the Radeon is 166/330 stock. Overclocking will vary.

At higher res, especially in 32-bit, the stock Radeon would likely match or beat your overclocked GeForce because of its bandwidth-saving HyperZ.

Still, for $120, I might have just gotten a GeForce DDR. Again, where did you get that deal?

 

[AndrewR]

Does the Radeon overclock at all?

 

[WageSlave]

Do you guys think the Radeon is a better choice for a celery 366@550?

 

[Hosea]

Wage the 32bit performence plus ddr ram would definetly preform better in your system than the G2 MX.

Also, what is in the software bundle?

 

[Hosea]

Wage the 32bit performence plus ddr ram would definetly preform better in your system than the G2 MX.

Also, what is in the software bundle?

 

[ElectroM]

I just got one of the radeon cards at Best Buy. When I run ATI's card info capture utility it says that the card has sdr sdram instead of ddr sdram. The box clearly states ddr on it. Does anyone know how I can confirm this card is sdr instead of ddr? If not, back it goes. I will just keep the rebate info and order on online before 10/31. Maybe this is why they are so cheap.

Update:
Powerstrip ver 2.75 says it is ddr sdram. Sorry for the false alarm. This does not bode well for the drivers.

 

[DSchell]

I purchased one today. I will pit it against my Hercules GeForce2 MX to see which I prefer. Since I play UT more than anything else, I can't really tell what my results will be based onthe already provided information.

 

[NiNe]

Hosea, the software bundle is just the drivers and the applications (ATI DVD and Multimedia Center).

AndrewR, PowerStrip can be used to overclock. Maybe I'll give it a shot and see what I get over the weekend. Anandtech got 225/205 on the 64MB/183MHz card (I think).

ElectroM, ATI has new (unsupported) drivers on their website. Seem to fix a lot of game-related issues. Dated Sept 21, so they are pretty recent.

DSchell, yes, let us know what you get with UT. People have been shying away from UT as a benchmark lately. Seems to be a better CPU benchmark than anything else. Personally, I've enjoyed UT gameplay better than Q3 at LAN parties so far, but I haven't tried the new point release yet.

 

[Trifecta]

This was a truly HOT deal!

169 for this card is a major bargain, especially when you line up this card with the MX boards for a mere 25 - 30 dollars.

(not to mention that this card is about 100 dollars less than my first DDR geforce!!!!)

Thanks for the Post NiNe, it was well worth it!!!