Crucial Technology Launches First Crucial Brand Video Card ?

[Doomtrooper]

Some other late breaking news today, and this is a strange one..Crucial Technologies has announced they will be making Radeon 8500 LE's ??

http://www.crucial.com/media/releases/Radeon8500LE128MB_VC.asp

Yes nggalai since its hardware related I thought the news would be interesting, go easy on me

 

[RussSchultz]

It seems like an odd business for Crucial to be getting into. (I.e. right now they sell their own memory and thats it).

I guess they could see it as selling their memory, since the parts are on the boards, but I can't imagine the volume is going to be enough to make it worthwhile to fracture their core competency that way.

Maybe they're selling it due to some cross marketting agreement. (I.e. they get to be sole provider to ATI for memory, but are required to sell the card on their site).

Anyways, just seems odd to have a memory manufacturer selling video cards.

 

[Fuz]

Whats odd is that they are releasing an LE version??? Correct if I am wrong, but doesn't the LE have slower running memory?

Wtf? Crucial being a ram manufacturer, you would expect them to release a 8500 with higher speed memory.

 

[dksuiko]

They have to put those low-yielding memory sticks somewhere.

 

[KnightBreed]

Whats odd is that they are releasing an LE version??? Correct if I am wrong, but doesn't the LE have slower running memory?

Wtf? Crucial being a ram manufacturer, you would expect them to release a 8500 with higher speed memory.

Isn't most high speed memory, especially for the 8500 series cards, manufactured by Samsung? I didn't even realize Micron was fabbing <4ns DRAM...

 

[SanGreal]

Isn't most high speed memory, especially for the 8500 series cards, manufactured by Samsung? I didn't even realize Micron was fabbing <4ns DRAM...

I don't know if they changed it when the 8500 128MB was released, but my Radeon 8500 64mb that I got last october uses Hynix memory. I think the 9700 uses Samsung though.

Its also my understanding that Hynix sold its memory business to Micron?

 

[MuFu]

I believe Sapphiretech are making the boards for Crucial. In which case, I'm sure they'll be pretty similar to Sapphiretech's own products, if not identical.

Most 128MB boards use Infineon BGA on ATi's 828 reference PCB - this is the board used for "built by ATi" 128MB 8500's and 8500LE's. Where Sapphiretech differ is that I believe they use a derivative of the 857 TSOP board (which is usually the basis for 64MB cards) and just set up the ASIC to address a 128MB framebuffer through the BIOS.

$134.99 is a really good price - I just hope they clock the thing at at least 250/250MHz.

MuFu.

 

[MuFu]

BTW; I think this might be more of a strategic partnership on Sapphiretech's behalf to exploit Crucial's distribution assets more than anything else.

 

[Nagorak]

They have to put those low-yielding memory sticks somewhere.

Ummm...the memory speed on an R8500 LE (250 MHz DDR) is still waaaaaaaay higher than PC2100 (133 MHz DDR), PC2700 (166 MHz DDR) or even PC3200 spec (200 MHz DDR). So it wouldn't really make sense for them to try to "dump" low-yielding memory this way, now would it?

If you think about it though, it makes perfect sense for them to do this. They get memory straight from Micron with no mark-up (basically they don't have to pay for it). So they can get a better profit margin off of video cards than say other vendors who have to actually buy memory.

 

[Crusher]

But they'll be paying more for the Radeon chip than ATI does, so they don't really gain anything.

 

[Clashman]

Man...

When I first saw this headline I thought this was going to be about Rendition coming back from the dead. Oh well, I can still dream.

 

[Nagorak]

But they'll be paying more for the Radeon chip than ATI does, so they don't really gain anything.

But that's true for everyone who makes Radeon based cards...why do 3rd parties make them then?

 

[Crusher]

Not many of them do. I believe ATI is the largest producer of Radeon cards, so my point was Micron's profits probably won't be any greater than ATI's. ATI had to buy the memory from someone else, Micron has to buy the graphics chip from someone else. Micron might be getting a little bit better profit margin than the other 3rd party manufacturers, but probably not by a whole lot. And I imagine whatever extra money they make will just go to help cover the extra costs they have from getting into the business of making cards.

 

[SanGreal]

Wow, this card is packed with a whopping 6ns (166mhz !!) ddr... so much for crucial using higher speed memory

 

[Nagorak]

Wow, this card is packed with a whopping 6ns (166mhz !!) ddr... so much for crucial using higher speed memory

Looks like they're trying to dump low yielding memory after all.