ATI X800 XT-PRO Details and Dates
As nVidia has announced its new range of cards, based on the NV40 core,
ATI is beginning to leak some information about plans for its new R420
core.
According to the latest information the X800 and its relatives will be
launched on May 5th during the System Builder Summit. The same information
suggests that although ATI has given itself a maximum of a month from
announcement to shipment, this time the company might be able to ship a
lot faster.
Details of the specifications of the new boards have also begun to
surface. Radeon X800 PRO will be clocked at 475 MHz with the memory
clocking-in at 900MHz.
The X800 PRO will feature 180 million transistors and the card will
have 12 pipelines as expected. The Radeon X800 XT will, obviously,
clock higher but the real surprise is that it will feature 16 pipelines.
The X800 PRO should be available in early May while the Radeon
X800 XT should appear right after E3 or around mid-to-late May.
nVidia Makes GF 6 Series Official
nVidia introduced today the GeForce 6800 models of graphics processing units
(GPUs) for high-performance desktop computers. The GeForce 6 Series, which
includes the flagship GeForce 6800 Ultra and GeForce 6800, is designed to
deliver:
-Industry-leading 3D performance- new superscalar 16-pipe architecture delivers
more than twice that of current industry leading NVIDIA GPUs
- New features, including Microsoft DirectX 9.0 Shader Model 3.0 feature set -
for ultra-realistic cinematic effects
- Unprecedented on-chip video processing engine - enabling high-definition video
and DVD playback
As DOOM 3 development winds to a close, my work has turned to development of
the next generation rendering technology. The NV40 is my platform of choice due
to its support of very long fragment programs, generalized floating point
blending and filtering, and the extremely high performance, said John
Carmack, president and technical director of id Software
The innovative 3D graphics architecture of the GeForce 6800 GPUs introduces many
key new technologies that will drive the image quality and performance in 3D
gaming, including:
- Fast Graphics Performance: With a revolutionary new 16 pipeline superscalar
architecture and the world’s fastest GDDR3 memory, GeForce 6800 GPUs offer a
staggering amount of graphics horsepower. Gaming performance is super charged
with eight times the floating-point shader power, four times the shadow
processing power and double the vertex processing power over last generation’s
award winning GeForce FX architecture.
- New Feature Set: Built with full Microsoft DirectX 9.0 Shader Model 3.0
support, the GeForce 6 Series was built to deliver ultra-realistic
next-generation DirectX 9 titles. The GeForce 6800 GPUs give developer’s
unlimited programmability, 32-bit shader precision, displacement mapping,
geometry instancing and other features unique to the GeForce 6 Series. In
addition, this new GPU delivers full floating point support throughout the
entire pipeline, GeForce 6800 GPUs vastly improve the quality of images in
motion with floating point filtering. The new rotated-grid antialiasing feature
removes jagged edges for incredible image quality and a new 16x anisotropic
filtering mode adds clarity to textures.
- World’s first on-chip video processor: GeForce 6800 GPUs have a programmable
video processing engine that delivers stunning high-definition video playback.
Featuring support for MPEG encode and decode, as well as support for Windows
Media Video 9 (WMV9), the GeForce 6800 delivers an amazing video experience when
used with the Microsoft Windows Media Center Edition operating system. The
GeForce 6800 also enables high-quality video playback on any window size, and
has an integrated TV-encoder for direct-to-TV playback.
GeForce 6800 GPUs benefit from the renowned compatibility and reliability of the
NVIDIA ForceWare software featuring the NVIDIA Unified Driver Architecture (UDA).
In addition NVIDIA ForceWare delivers industry-leading software features such as
custom game profiles, HDTV output, overclocking, multi-display support, and much
more.
The first GPUs based on the NVIDIA GeForce 6 Series, the GeForce 6800 Ultra and
GeForce 6800 models, are manufactured using IBM’s high-volume 0.13-micron
process technology and are currently shipping to leading add-in-card partners,
OEMs, system builders, and game developers.
Retail graphics boards based on the GeForce 6800 models are slated for release
in the next 45 days.
