Radeon 8500 OEM from dell, is the card being build by ATI or dell??

[boonmar]

What is OEM? If dell build the card, what is the differnce between ATI card?

I was at pricewatch.com to see what 8500 was going for and saw this message by one of the vendors

"Buyer beaware for OEM ATI products - ATI OEM
now built by 3rd party - Not orginal"

[Kingslayer]

ATI has started out-sourceing their GPU's to other card manufacturers. Much like nVidia has been doing for years. I don't see what the problems could be other than slow memory, bad drivers, and cheap construction...same flaws that hindered nVidia when they started doing this.

Just depends on who you get it from. Would I buy a Visiontek Radeon 8500? Yep. Would I buy a Pine Radeon 8500? Nope.

[FunkyTechnician]

There definitely will be several versions of the 8500 ranging from the high end to the bargain. Just like you can find with the Nvidia cards....Hercules all the way down to no-name generics.

With the "flagship" card of a company i.e.-Geforce3/ Radeon 8500 the chip manufacturer will usually limit the changes that a company can make so that the card isn't a blemish on their reputation. Which is why you can be guaranteed pretty much the same performance regardless of what Geforce3 you buy.

Hopefully ATI will follow this and not allow an underperforming version of the R200.

Am