Dutch company Point of View will lauch during CeBit next week its new heatsink called Ice Chameleon. Fully made of copper, it will be added to the PCI Express GeForce 6600 and GeForce 6800 series from this company. Accordingly to the manufacturer, this heatsink has low noise level because it runs at 5 V instead of 12 V, so the fan rotates at a lower speed. Also, the copper has a better thermal dissipation then alloy and the manufacturer promises that the graphic chip can run up to 10 degrees cooler using its new heatsink. Models with the new heatsink will be available starting March 17th.
ATI has officially launched Radeon X800 XL and X850 XT GPUs with AGP 8x interface aimed at gamers looking to upgrade their systems without having to adopt a new platform. The first uses a PCI Express to AGP bridge chip while the others are native AGP. The specifications are basically the same as those of the PCI-E versions. The X800 XL is clocked at 400 MHz and features 16 pixel pipelines, 256-bit interface and 256 MB of GDDR3 memory cloked at 1.1 GHz. The X850 XT GPUs are clocked at 520/540 MHz with GDDR3 memory at 1.12/1.18 GHz.
ATI showcased during last weekend's Texas Gaming Festival a Radeon X850 XT prototype with 512 MB of GDDR3 memory using dual-rank design. The company plans to offer 512 MB cards commercially soon. The prototype presented during the festival was set with the same frequencies as standard X850 XT cards: core at 520 MHz and memory at 1.08 GHz. A statement from the company assured that the 512 MB piece ensures higher perfomance even in current games and outperforms higher-end X850 XT Platinum Edition cards.
European VGA company Point of View has announced a new bundle sporting two of its own GeForce 6800 GT PCI-E card and a ASUS A8N-SLI Deluxe motherboard. The GT Gaming Deluxe Bundle takes advantage of Nvidia“s SLI technology which allows simultaneous use of multiple video cards. The GeForce 6800 GT is clocked at 350 MHz and features 16 pixel pipelines, 256-bit interface and 256 MB of 2.0 ns GDDR3 memory clocked at 1 GHz. The A8N-SLI Deluxe is a nForce4 board aimed at socket 939 Athlon 64 chips. It brings features such as Serial ATA II, NV firewall and dual Gigabit LAN as well as ASUS“ proprietary overclocking technologies. The pack, set to be available in the beginning of March, includes three games: Hitman Contracts, Shellshock and Thief.
ATI began shipping a mobile version of its Radeon Xpress 200 chipset. The company claims that it is the first PCI Express integrated DirectX 9 chipset for notebooks with AMD processors. Based on the Radeon X300, the Xpress 200M offers PowerPlay 5.0 power management and HyperMemory, which shares the capacity and bandwidth of dedicated video memory and dynamically available system memory. The chipset supports AMD processors with 800 MHz or 1 GHz HyperTransport bus, up to four PCI-E x1 lanes, four Serial ATA ports (RAID 0, 1), eight USB 2.0 ports and AC“97 audio. According to ATI, design wins include HP, Sharp, Medion, Acer, Targa, Gateway, NEC, Mitac, Arima, MSI, Compal, Quanta Sharp and Wistron.
GeCube started to ship new PCI Express cards based on the Radeon X850 XT and X800 XL chips as part of its Uni-Wise series. This line features a single slot fan promising noise level under 20 dB and a copper heatsink with heatpipe technology. The GC-RX850XTS-VIVO is clocked at 540 MHz and features 16 pixel pipelines, 256 MB of GDDR3 memory at 1.18 GHz and VGA, DVI, HDTV-Out and VIVO connectors. The GC-RX800XL-D3 256MB is clocked at 400 MHz and also sports 16 pixel pipelines and 256 MB of GDDR3 (at 1 GHz), but lacks VIVO funcionality.
Nvidia has completed its GeForce Go 6 series with the mid-range Go 6600 GPU. The PCI Express chip is available in standard (clocked at 375 MHz with memory at 600 MHz) and Ultra versions (450/700 MHz). They have eight pixel pipelines and 128-bit memory interface while consuming 18 watts and 26.5 watts respectively. Companies like AOpen, ASUS, Clevo, MSI and Toshiba will market notebooks featuring the GeForce Go 6600.
Gigabyte has released a new top of the line PCI Express card, the GV-RX85X256V-B, based on the Radeon X850 XT Platinum Edition GPU. The card, clocked at 540 MHz, features 16 pixel pipelines and processes up to 810 M vertices/sec with 6 vertex pipelines. It packs 256 MB of GDDR3 memory at 1.18 GHz. The GV-RX85X256V-B supports HDTV resolutions up to 2048x1536 dpi and includes Dual DVI, VIVO and HDTV-Out connectors. The retail package includes three games: Joint Operations, Thief and SpellForce.
Matrox has announced a PCI Express version of its Millennium P650 graphics card aimed at content creators. It includes 128 MB of DDR memory and features dual 400 MHz RAMDACs for fully symmetric DualHead resolutions up to 1920 x 1440 per display and advanced Dual-DVI technology for resolutions up to 1920 x 1200 per digital flat panel. Supported output configurations include: DualHead independent, DualHead stretched, DualHead Clone, DualHead Zoom and Portrait mode. The card will only be available in April with a list price of USD 249.
ATI began to ship the FireGL V5000 workstation graphics accelerator which promises to bring high-end functionality to a wider range of design professionals. The card sports eight pixel pipelines, six geometry engines, 128 MB of GDDR3 memory, dual DVI connectors for multi-display applications and dual link support for 9 megapixels displays. Suggested price is USD 699.
ATI has introduced its new Mobility Radeon X700, featuring eight pixel pipelines and six vertex engines and aimed mainly at thin“n“light notebooks. The PCI Express part promises to offer longer battery life through the POWERPLAY 5.0 power management tool and other improvements. It also includes features such as LRTC and LCD-EE for high-quality video playback and Automatic Display Configuration technology for simplified setup of external displays.
ATI released its first 2005 update to its Catalyst driver. Version 5.1 brings a variety of fixes, dealing with bugs involving dual head systems, video playback, PCI Express, XVideo overlay and a range of games. It also includes support for 64-bit architectures under XFree86 4.3 and X.org 6.8 Linux. The Control Center version now works with all Radeon GPUs and has pause and stop buttons in 3D preview. The download files have 22 MB and 28 MB (Control Center).
HIS announced that its Excalibur Radeon X850 XT and X850 XT Platinum Edition cards with Dual DVI and VIVO have finally hit retail. The higher-end X850 XT PE is clocked at 540 MHz and uses 256 MB of GDDR3 memory at 1,180 MHz. Numbers for the X850 XT model are 520 MHz and 1,080 MHz. Both PCI Express cards have 16 pixel pipelines and 256-bit memory interface. The retail package may include an optional Platinum Pack with Dungeon Siege, Counter Strike and ARX Fatalis.
Dutch company Point of View is one of the first VGA card makers to launch a GeForce 6800 with PCI Express interface. The GeForce 6800 Ultra PCX is clocked at 425 MHz and features 16 pixel pipelines, 256-bit interface and 256 MB of GDDR3 memory clocked at 1.1 GHz. It includes two DVI-I and one TV-Out connectors. Simultaneous use of multiple cards is supported through SLI. The company will release a GT PCI Express model soon.
ATI launched the TV Wonder Elite, a new TV capture card based on the company own Theater 550 Pro chip that promises high-end TV image quality on PCs. The card can receive up to 125 PAL and SECAM channels in addition to FM radio. The Theater 550 Pro integrates a 12-bit video decoder that features 3D comb filtering for NTSC and PAL and 5-line 2D Comb filtering. The bundle includes a new Remote Wonder Plus control. Suggested retail price is USD 149.
