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ATI Launches Radeon X1900 XT and XTX

Posted by CmdrTaco on Tue Jan 24, 2006 09:25 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 25 Comments More /

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  • Wow (Score:3, Insightful)

    by thepotoo (829391) <thepotoospamNO@SPAMyahoo.com> on Tuesday January 24 2006, @09:30AM (#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, @09:32AM (#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?

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

        by arivanov (12034) on Tuesday January 24 2006, @10:04AM (#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.

  • Hmmm... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Yahweh Doesn't Exist (906833) on Tuesday January 24 2006, @09:37AM (#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
  • '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, @09:46AM (#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.
  • 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, @10:19AM (#14547951)
    The Tech Report's in-depth analysis is flowing freely with narry a hiccup. Check it out here [techreport.com].

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

      by kapowaz (667664) on Tuesday January 24 2006, @09:52AM (#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...

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

      by NocturnDragon (820237) on Tuesday January 24 2006, @10:03AM (#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.

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