As expected, ATI has launched AGP versions of its Radeon X1300 and X1600 cards, and GeCube is one of the first companies announcing such products. The four-pixel pipeline GC-RX1300GA2-D3 is clocked at 450 MHz (with memory at 500 MHz) and includes VGA, DVI and TV-Out connectors. The 12-pixel pipeline GC-RX1600PGA2-D3, set at 500 MHz and 800 MHz, comes with dual DVI and TV-Out connectors. Both are equipped with 256 MB of DDR2 memory and 128-bit interface.
ATI promises a performance gain of up to 25% in dual-core systems with its new Catalyst driver (5.12). The latest edition of the package concentrates on optimizations for such processors. It also fixes a variety of bugs, the two most important involving Far Cry and Quake 4, in very specific settings. Contrary to tradition, ATI plans to post one more Catalyst update this year, around Christmas. The Control Center download file has 35 MB.
ATI this week unveiled its first Radeon X1000 series mobile chip. The 90-nm Mobility Radeon X1600 brings 12 pixel pipelines, five vertex shaders processors, 128-bit interface and supports technologies such as Avivo video enhancement and Dynamic Voltage Control. The GPU is compatible with DDR, DDR2, GDDR3 and GDDR4 memory formats. Asus, Acer, Alienware, ECS, FIC, HP, Medion, Packard Bell, Samsung and Rock are among companies expected to offer notebooks sporting the chip.
ASUS has announced its first overclocked Radeon X1800 XT board. The EAX1800XT TOP runs at 700 MHz with 512 MB of GDDR3 memory at 1.6 GHz. ATI’s default settings are 625 MHz and 1.5 GHz. The card has 16 pixel pipelines, eight vertex shaders engines, 256-bit interface, dual DVI and VIVO connectors. The package includes the official “King Kong” movie game and an XitePad gamepad.
Samsung has announced a 7-inch plastic TFT-LCD for applications such as notebooks and cellphones. The company sait it had to solve a series of problems, including heat sensitivity, to produce the biggest flexible LCD panel ever. Earlier this year, Samsung, which developed the technology with SoftPixel, announced a 5-inch transmissive plastic TFT-LCD.
AnandTech today reports that ATI sent an advisory to selected add-in-board partners providing support for overclocking configurations on its Radeon X1800 XT card as long as they “assume all responsibility for testing, yield and potential fallout”. Allegedly, the company will even provide software to indicate if boards are capable of such tweaking. Current X1800 XT default settings are 625 MHz (core) and 1.5 GHz (memory). ATI is allowing manufacturers to go as high as 700 MHz and 1.6 GHz. The company, however, will not guarantee warranty to chips or boards damaged by overclocking.
EVGA this week announced a BlackPearl version of its GeForce 7800 GTX 512 MB card that clocks at 600 MHz (core) and 1.8 GHz (memory). Nvidia’s reference settings are 550 MHz and 1.7 GHz. The BlackPearl water cooling system, designed by Innovatek, consists of a 400 W radiator and a 12-cm fan. EVGA’s card uses 1.1 ns DDR3 memory and includes dual DVI and VIVO connectors.
ATI has announced the availability of its first All-In-Wonder card based on the Radeon X1800 series. It uses a R520XL with standard 500 MHz (core) and 1 GHz (memory) clocks. The NTSC U.S. version, the first to hit the market, includes TV tuner for instant viewing of up to 125 channels of cable or analog antenna broadcasts with FM reception; Gemstar's GuidePlus+ integrated program guide; and unified application for both analog and free over-the air HDTV broadcasts. The multimedia card comes bundled with Adobe’s Photoshop Elements 4.0 and Premiere Elements 2.0. An European version (PAL) should appear within two weeks.
XFX has released two VGA cards based on Nvidia’s GeForce 7800 GTX 512 MB. The PV-T70F-YDL is a standard product, clocked at 550 MHz (core) and 1.7 GHz (memory), while the XXX Edition (PV-T70F-YDF) overclocks to 580 MHz and 1.73 GHz. Like the 7800 GTX 256 MB, the new chip has 24 pixel pipelines, eight vertex shaders engines and 256-bit GDDR3 interface. Both cards from XFX feature dual DVI and TV-Out connectors.
Diamond Multimedia has announced on its website that it will soon launch a Radeon X1800 card with AGP 8x interface. Such a product would certainly appeal to the owners of fairly powerful machines running on AGP motherboards. The card is said to use a Rialto PCI Express-to-AGP bridge. Specs are currently scarce, but the board should have 256 MB of GDDR3 and also be available with PCI Express interface, though only the AGP version is expected to sport a VIVO connector.
XGI Technology has officially launched the Volari 8300, a PCI Express GPU aimed at the value segment. Fabbed at 0.13 micron, the chip features a technology called eXtreme Cache, similar to Nvidia’s TurboCache and ATI’s HyperMemory, all of which dynamically allocate system memory to support graphics processing (up to 256 MB). The Volari 8300 has four pixel pipelines (2x2), two vertex shaders engines and 32 or 64-bit DDR memory interface. XGI’s new GPU, clocked at 300 MHz and available in desktop and notebooks versions, is DirectX 9-compatible, but supports only Shader Model 2.0. Other technologies include inverse 3:2 Pull-down, De-Interlacing and CoolPower II.
XFX has launched two overclocked GeForce 6800 GS cards. The XXX Edition (PV-T42G-UAD7) runs at 485 MHz, with 256 MB of GDDR3 at 1.1 GHz, while the Extreme Edition (PV-T42G-UAF7) reaches 450 MHz with memory at 1.05 GHz. The 6800 GS, based on the NV42 chip and fabbed at 110-nm, has 12 pixel pipelines, five vertex shaders engines and 256-bit interface.
With ATI’s high-end Radeon X1800 XT finally coming to market, HIS has already announced a card based on the chip, featuring 512 MB of GDDR3. The X1800XT 2x Dual Link DVI VIVO 512MB is clocked at standard 625 MHz (core) and 1.5 GHz (memory) and includes dual DVI and VIVO connectors. The 90-nanometer Radeon X1800 XT has 16 pixel pipelines, eight vertex shaders engines and 256-bit interface.
