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ATI Launches Radeon X1900 XT and XTX

Posted by CmdrTaco on Tue Jan 24, 2006 08:25 AM
from the pixels-and-polygons-and-processors-oh-my dept.
Graphics Software Hardware
Steve from HEXUS writes "ATI have done more than just boost clock speeds for their latest GPU; they've concentrated on boosting particular aspects of the GPU. This doesn't necessarily mean a boost in performance in all apps, however. HEXUS has a review: 'Even current synthetic benchmarks designed to show off theoretical rates in 3D hardware can have a hard time exploiting the tripling in fragment processing ability. That's not to say the performance increases at the same clocks as R520 are invisible. Clearly they're not without increases, especially at the higher resolutions, of up to 30% in the games we tested, clock-for-clock.'"
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ATI Launches Radeon X1900 XT and XTX 50 Comments More /

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  • Wow (Score:3, Insightful)

    by thepotoo (829391) <thepotoospam@yah[ ]com ['oo.' in gap]> on Tuesday January 24 2006, @08:30AM (#14547691)
    These cards are drasticly improved over the previous ones...In a lot of game they get up to double the frame rate as on the old cards. And even then they're complaining that it was running at only 72% capacity. Geez.

    Now, can someone track down pricing info for these cards?

  • Linux Drivers (Score:3, Insightful)

    by killeena (794394) on Tuesday January 24 2006, @08:32AM (#14547700) Homepage
    I am sure the cards are great and all, but us Linux users would never know due to the drivers.
    • Bah... outside of like Quake 9 or something, neither will the Windows users...

      How many apps are even using *part* of the current crop of GPUs?

      • How many apps are even using *part* of the current crop of GPUs?

        Windows Vista ??

      • Re:Linux Drivers (Score:4, Informative)

        by arivanov (12034) on Tuesday January 24 2006, @09:04AM (#14547843) Homepage
        With the minor difference that Windows users can run them in a decent resolution and decent refresh rates for something simple as Microshaft Word. Linux users will not be able to do this for a while. And I mean users, not freaks living on the apt-get unstable edge or developers.

        When something really new comes out it takes at least 6 months+ for it to get filtered down at X-whatever level and at least a year for it getting to a distribution level. There are so many branches and fig leaves on the X tree now that even if ATI releases a source for any specific X-whatever it will be bloody useless to anyone but that specific X-whatever.

        Just as an example - I looked at merging the changes for the recent crop of PCI Express Radeons from X.org into the debian sarge (Thy Last XFree86) driver and I simply had to set it aside. A few days job at least because in their infinite wisdom the X.org people have started merging things like DRM right into the code instead of separating them out. So as a result the source which was arcane before the split is now outright mindbending in some places. Code maintainability... Yeah... Right... Heard about it...

        Grgghhhhhhhhhhh....
      • Nearly every game launched in the last year actually has options that will look better or be more playable (meaninful increase in framerate) with the best card setup you can buy. Whether these cards allow you to crank your resolution to 1920x1200 (Even civ4 is unplayable on my goforce 6800 at that res) or turn on all the eye candy, there's something nice you can get in nearly every case.
    • Well this is familiar. New ATI graphics card.... No decent Linux drivers... blah blah blah...

      What sort of graphics card do you need to play Tux Racer anyway?
    • I am sure the cards are great and all, but us Linux users would never know due to the drivers.

      I have a Radeon 9250 -- one of the last solidly-supported-with-an-open-source-driver cards out there. Definitely getting long in the tooth, though.

  • Hmmm... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Yahweh Doesn't Exist (906833) on Tuesday January 24 2006, @08:37AM (#14547716)
    >'That's not to say the performance increases at the same clocks as R520 are invisible. Clearly they're not without increases, especially at the higher resolutions, of up to 30% in the games we tested, clock-for-clock.'"

    I recognise those words, but this summary makes no sense...
    • "Well, obviously, it's not meant to be taken literally. It refers to any manufacturers of dairy products." Monty Python, Life of Brian
    • Mood: happy

      OMG dudez, so like today the x1900xtx was released, and i was like, OMG! I can get 5more frames in the 26th pitch black hallway fo Doom 3, yo. so i called my dad in the Hamptons and he said he'd wire me the $700 for the new card so I can show off to Joey next door. he's got a lame nvidia and it is 3fps less than me in Far Cry, even tho i don play that game anymore and its already 2 years ol. lolz, j/k, nvidia is pretty good, but this x1900xtx is new and very expensive and therefor better and
  • Seriously, why does ATI marketing feel the need to prematurely boost the suffixes all the way to unheralded 'XTX' when the 1900 series is being introduced? At least there has been some reasonable pattern to follow for a while in their naming scheme....now they have caved to their profit desires and taken adavntage of our familiarity with their naming scheme.

    • Because it's shorter than 'Platinum Edition'... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by kapowaz (667664) on Tuesday January 24 2006, @08:52AM (#14547784) Homepage
      That's what their previous designation was for the very top of the line cards. Unfortunately (particularly with the X800XT PE, which I waited 3 months to get hold of) the suffix was associated with being impossible to find (quite true) and for marketing / PR reasons the name was retired in favour of an additional X. Still, I agree that the trend towards increasingly lengthy names is getting a bit out of hand. I remember when the original GeForce launched and it was simply referred to as the "GeForce256". For a while Nvidia even flirted with making the names more simple with the GeForce 2. Then they brought out the MX and it kind of got confusing from there on out...
    • Because marketing departments at electronics manufacturers are complete idiots. So you get "Radeon X1900 XTX." Same with companies like Sony. For some reason, they get off on adding a bunch of gibberish engineering numbers and letters, which only confuses the consumer and makes it harder to keep track of all this crap. XL, XT, XTX, etc.

      Along with forcing the consumer to memorize engineering names, you've got the blandness and graphics obsession of PC games, and now you know why PC gaming is on its way d
  • 'Even current synthetic benchmarks designed to show off theoretical rates in 3D hardware can have a hard time exploiting the tripling in fragment processing ability.'

    If synthetic benchmarks can't show off theoretical rates, how is an actual benchmark with an actual rate going to exploit its processing abilities?

    Clock-for-clock [time.gov] all time should be the same.

  • Site down (Score:5, Funny)

    by Fooker (656693) on Tuesday January 24 2006, @08:46AM (#14547758)
    Sure, as soon as this is posted the site goes down for essential maintenance. What ever happened to those good days when sites were down because they were slashdotted?
    • OT and **** the kama. Probably down because they KNOW they are about to get SD'd and very sensible of them. Perhaps if more sites did this or actually blocked slashdot referals editors would actually post cached links to the articles. I for one am seriously BORED of stories where the TFA is unavailable to read and it isnt as if SD cant take measures to ensure TFA is available. A few years ago the SD effect was a joke. Now its just making SD look like a joke.
    • Slashdot traffic doesn't carry nearly the weight it used to. You'd be hard pressed to get 10K clicks out of a slashdot anymore - which even the most mundane of machines can take easily.

      HJ
  • Barely faster than my overclocked 7800GT @ 520Mhz/1.19Ghz. I'm sure a properly overclocked nVidia GTX would be just fine, at a much lower cost, by the time ATI can figure out how to push volume. And at the rate nVidia is beating up on ATI, I find their ability to upset them highly suspect in the near-term. Video cards are stupid. They come out every 18 months with something at least twice as good. They will always cost like $400-$800 for the newest one. Get over it. Why do people bother with these stu

    • Re:Who cares? Stupid paper launches (Score:5, Interesting)

      by NocturnDragon (820237) on Tuesday January 24 2006, @09:03AM (#14547837)
      Sorry to contradict you, but this one is not going to be a paper launch, ATI is shipping around 10,000 Radeon X1900 cards today. And comparing a overclocked card with one that is not overclocked doesn't cut it, as you can still overclock the new one. (And seeing as they are using 1.1ns memory, you could easily clock the memory to at least 1600MHz DDR). The price is going to be high, that's true, but that's also because you cannot really find any 7800 GTX 512MB around! Sure you can if you want to pay around 700$-800$.
    • I've already spoken to one UK reseller who confirmed they have them in stock. Not yet booked in, and thus not available for purchase, but cards from Connect3D, Sapphire, PowerColor and HIS were all on the premises and will be available to exchange for cash within 24 hours. Clearly ATI has learned its lesson where launches are concerned.

    • Seriously people, stop modding the parent post up.

      In case you missed it, this is not a paper launch, and this is not a card with only enough volume for reviewers. This is a real launch. You can buy this card now. ATI learned their lesson, and we should acknowledge that. Maybe it can finally start a trend away from paper launches in the industry.

  • While synthetic benchmarks may have given unexpected results in this case, slashdot has helped 'benchmark' their servers.
  • The link in the article appears to be broken but you can get a pretty good overview on the card over at the [H]

    ATI Radeon X1900 Series Evaluation [hardocp.com]

  • Another Review You Can Actually Read (Score:3, Informative)

    by AnInkle (882630) on Tuesday January 24 2006, @09:19AM (#14547951)
    The Tech Report's in-depth analysis is flowing freely with narry a hiccup. Check it out here [techreport.com].
  • I've recently played F.E.A.R. . The graphics were ok, but the shadows etc are still hard. When are we gonna see hardware-based raytracing/radiosity lighting? it's gonna make a hell of a difference in graphics!
  • Yes, I know AGP is nearly dead, but I'm saddled with it until I upgrade my motherboard, and I don't want to do that just yet. But getting a new graphics card in the meantime would be helpful. Is there any chance a vendor will make an AGP version of this new card?

    Bruce
    • Well, if you are looking to buy a $550-$600 video card, I think you can pony up the money for a PCI-Express board too. If not, there are some not-quite-as-fast-but-cheaper AGP cards you can buy.
      • See, your reply wasn't helpful. I asked a simple question, and instead you gave a snarky comment, making a bunch of assumptions that I should just buy a new motherboard anyway. That's not really what I want to do right now, because that would ALSO require me to buy a new processor and some other changes. Which I will do in the future, AS I ALREADY SAID, but IN THE MEANTIME I was hoping to get an AGP version of this card. Rather than wait 9 months to buy a new MB+CPU+X1900 PCIE, I'd rather buy a X1900 AG

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