• Competitor rules

    Please remember that any mention of competitors, hinting at competitors or offering to provide details of competitors will result in an account suspension. The full rules can be found under the 'Terms and Rules' link in the bottom right corner of your screen. Just don't mention competitors in any way, shape or form and you'll be OK.

Radeon X1950 is coming ...

ACESHIGH

ACESHIGH

ACESHIGH

Soldato
Joined
17 Aug 2005
Posts
4,297
Ready or not, here comes GDDR4

This week ATI sent an advisory out to its OEM partners announcing the details of the new Radeon X1950 and X1900 graphic cards. Both of these new cards are based on the same R580 core, but with some fundamental differences.

R580, the 48 pixel-shader processor version of the R520 (Radeon X1800), was announced this past January. R580 features a robust memory controller capable of utilizing several different types of memory, including GDDR4 which was not even available when the Radeon X1900 was first announced. Since then Hynix and Samsung have both jumped on the GDDR4 train with revenue shipments beginning several weeks ago. The new GDDR4 variants of R580-based Radeons are now called Radeon X1950. Radeon X1950 will retain all of the features of the Radeon X1900, and really only have the added benefit of a new cooler, GDDR4 memory and different frequency clocks.

Radeon X1950 at launch will come in two flavors: a high clock "XTX" version, and a CrossFire version. Both cards feature 512MB GDDR4, and the only major difference between the two is that the CrossFire X1950 houses the composite engine and input interfaces for CrossFire. Just yesterday, ATI issued an advisory to its partners claiming "Clock frequencies for RADEON X1950 family products are pending and will be provided at a later date." However, in March of this year ATI released a new policy for AIB partners to overclock X1000 series cores with some discretion. While we can already confirm some partners are planning 650MHz core versions, there is still a distinct possibility that higher clocked cards are also in the works. Memory clock frequencies have not been announced either, though Samsung announced its GDDR4 is already capable of 3.2GHz in 8x512Mbit configurations.

The new Radeon X1900 is a low-cost version of the existing Radeon X1900 that only uses 256MB of GDDR3, enabling the card access to the $300 price point. The Radeon X1900XT 256MB will use the same clock frequencies as other Radeon X1900XT cards: 625MHz core and 1.45GHz memory.

ATI's advisory documentation claims the Radeon X1950XTX will begin sample availability on August 7, with the CrossFire sampling beginning exactly one week later. Sampling of the Radeon X1900XT 256MB will begin immediately.

Radeon X1900 and X1950 will be replaced by another ASIC core, dubbed R600. R600 is expected to be 80nm with new design features above and beyond the R520 and R580 series.
Click to expand...


http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=3446
 
Errrm yes, it will. I might get one.

and I expect it will nudge ATi Ahead in the single card stakes again (the 7950 is a SINGLE card - doesn't use two slots). The G-DDR4 mem will allow the core to open up, I expect to see 14k 2005 with one X1950XT-X :cool: and 16k 2005 with the LN2 ppl.

My experiments with my X1900 have shown me that a 10mhz mem clock increases performance more than 10mhz on the core from stock speeds. This only stops every 40/50 mhz or so, I suspect its a 10/20:40/50 Core:mem ratio with the X1900 ;)

CR.
 
So when will it be in the shops? It says august 7th for sample availablility (which I assume is for revewers) but then how long after that will full release be? How long has this taken in the past, are we talking days, weeks, or months?

Cheers!
 
so am i right in saying that these cards wont be that much faster than the current x1900XT-X ... i read somewhere from another source that it will only be 7% faster...
 
sugoi said:
so am i right in saying that these cards wont be that much faster than the current x1900XT-X ... i read somewhere from another source that it will only be 7% faster...
Click to expand...

Might just be a test bed for GDDR4?
 
Hi there

X1950 will be in shops no doubt mid-end September. :)

Then in late September/October GeForce 8000 will appear....... ;)
 
So this is going to beat the 7950GX2 when the only improvement is GDDR4 which no games probally support at the moment :confused:

Please correct me if I'm wrong.
 
It has nothing to do with games supporting GDDR4.
GDDR4 is simply very fast memory (up to 3.2GHz), so in essence every game allready supports it.
So you can have a card with very fast memory (fastest memory ever on any card i would suspect) & increased bandwith along with it.
 
At the end of this summer I have to decide on whether to build a brand spanking new PC or get a Macbook Pro.

I will ONLY get the PC if everyone can guarantee that it will absolutely rip apart the Xbox 360/PS3.
 
Yeah ATI's not putting their coolers on their cards now, they are doing what Nvidia have been doing for years, letting their partners put their own ones on, about time to. :)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom