New standard set by ATI

THE NEXT move in the graphics card
arms race was made by ATI last
month with the launch of its X1000
family of graphics processors.

In a launch of several firsts, an
entire range of GPUs have been
released at the same time. They
are also the first to use 90
nanometer semiconductor
fabrication technology,
allowing even
more power
than before.

The family
consists of the
X1300, X1600
and X1800
GPUs, which
are the entry, mid and high-end
products respectively. They all feature
the same architecture, but have four,
12 and 16 shader processors.

There have apparently been
improvements made in the high
dynamic range, anti aliasing, texture
filtering and 3Dc+.

The 1800XL,
1300 Pro and 1300 were launched in
October, with the top-end 1800XT due
out in mid November and the 1600XT
and Pro expected in early December.

The reason for the delays appears to
be a single bug which took a lot
longer than usual to identify,
but which ATI
believes is
now resolved.

The GPUs also
feature the new
Avivo video and display
platform, which is
appearing in ATI?s
consumer electronics
offerings. The platform
includes hardware and software
technologies which refine video
capture and playback, and improve
display quality.

All digital photo and video files are processed through a series of steps before being displayed on PC monitors. A flaw in any one of these steps will produce a less accurate video or image.