ATI Reveals Radeon X1900 Details Internally
by Kristopher Kubicki on December 22, 2005 3:52 PM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
ATI secretly released its Silver Bullets material to AIBs this week and the picture of R580 is slowly coming together. R580, or Radeon X1900 as it is called internally, is expected to "launch" in January according to ATI documentation. Unfortunately, ATI's track record has not been spectacular with the last few product launches. ATI's Crossfire chipset "launched" twice, once in June and again in October.
ATI released their Silver Bullets for Radeon X1800 approximately two months before the launch of the card, but it took nearly six weeks after the launch for master card variants of the X1800 to show up on store shelves (and nearly as long for Crossfire motherboards as well).
The Silver Bullets presentation was a little light on details, but did confirm the R580 GPU has 48 pixel shader processors and higher clocks than R520 (a.k.a. Radeon X1800). Radeon X1900 uses a 90nm process also found on Radeon X1800. The internal briefing also confirmed that there will be two separate versions of the card, RX1900CF "Master Card" and RX1900 "Crossfire Ready" card. Like the Radeon X1800 series, you will need at least one master card to enable Crossfire support. Avivo and Shader Model 3.0 will also appear on Radeon X1900.
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coldpower27 - Monday, December 26, 2005 - link
Yes, it might have been better to simply say to keep ATI nervous, unless everyone is allright with saying "ATI's upcoming R580 should keep the Americans nervous."poohbear - Sunday, December 25, 2005 - link
"the canadians nervous"???? wtf is this the war of 1812?!? dont matter if they're norwegian or south african, competition is good. this has nothing to do w/ nationality.bob661 - Monday, December 26, 2005 - link
Ho hum. ATI is a Canadian company.Griswold - Saturday, December 24, 2005 - link
Or the other way around.Brian23 - Thursday, December 22, 2005 - link
aw man that sucks. I thought they were going to fix this whole master card slave card thing with the R580.I hate the fact that you have to buy a special card if you want crossfire.
Chadder007 - Thursday, December 22, 2005 - link
:werd:Same here, master card = lame
Shintai - Thursday, December 22, 2005 - link
Agree, but on the other hand...how many of the consumer base gonna use CF or SLI anyway. It´s more a PR gimmick than something people buy.MrSmurf - Tuesday, December 27, 2005 - link
It's not PR gimmick.It's an easy way to:
1. Gain the performance crown (at least in the case with nvidia, ATI just had to respond)
2. Get more people to buy their chipsets (mobo)
3. Sell more GPU
4. Get people to notice their company
SLI and CR are clearly designed for hardcore gamers and a cheap way for everyone to upgrade their system without having to get rid of their old card.