Well, it would seem that my wish has been granted, as Anandtech has posted their own review of the board up, complete with benches (although short) on Page 20:
Perhaps there are two drawbacks to the new All-In-Wonder card, or maybe more, but these seem fairly obvious.
The price of the new board can't be cheap. Compared to the next generation of nVidia boards, prices seem very top of the line. Of course, even if video performance doesn't match up with the nVidia boards, ATI can count on the features that make it an All-In-Wonder board. However, the main thing that the new, upgraded DV board offers is the boosted RAM, and the increased clock. This is somewhat hypocritical in itself. Which brings us to the second drawback, performance.
The original 8500DV, with it's 'paltry' 64 megs, didn't perform so badly. Sure, it was smoked by the new Ge4s, but as other commenters have remarked, you don't have a real need for the performance that the Ge4s offer, unless you are going to be on of the zealous people running Q3 at insane resolutions with 4x FSAA. HotHardware didn't do a bench with the original DV against the new one, but I'd be interested in what came up. Furthermore, anyone buying the DV looking for heavy game performance as well is few and far in between.
What ATI really needed was not a slightly faster All-In-Wonder board...what it needed was the next chip. It's only a matter of time before nVidia perfects their version.
- In hindsight, I realize I've made some pretty questionable generalizations...oh well.:)
Slashdot Mirror
Way to flame.
http://anandtech.com/video/showdoc.html?i=1609&p=1
The price of the new board can't be cheap. Compared to the next generation of nVidia boards, prices seem very top of the line. Of course, even if video performance doesn't match up with the nVidia boards, ATI can count on the features that make it an All-In-Wonder board. However, the main thing that the new, upgraded DV board offers is the boosted RAM, and the increased clock. This is somewhat hypocritical in itself. Which brings us to the second drawback, performance.
The original 8500DV, with it's 'paltry' 64 megs, didn't perform so badly. Sure, it was smoked by the new Ge4s, but as other commenters have remarked, you don't have a real need for the performance that the Ge4s offer, unless you are going to be on of the zealous people running Q3 at insane resolutions with 4x FSAA. HotHardware didn't do a bench with the original DV against the new one, but I'd be interested in what came up. Furthermore, anyone buying the DV looking for heavy game performance as well is few and far in between.
What ATI really needed was not a slightly faster All-In-Wonder board...what it needed was the next chip. It's only a matter of time before nVidia perfects their version. - In hindsight, I realize I've made some pretty questionable generalizations...oh well. :)
"Even Harvard Law School students are getting into the act."
If kids at Harvard are getting sucked in, then this that definately classifies it as a crisis.