ATI Radeon X1K Refresh: X1950 XTX, X1900 XT 256MB, X1650 Pro, and X1300 XT

ATI's brand new flagship consumer level graphics card is the Radeon X1950 XTX. The Radeon X1950 XTX is technically a mixture of old and new technology, but the end result is one of the most powerful graphics cards to ever come out of ATI.

Two Radeon X1950 XTX Cards
In a CrossFire Configuration

	ATI Radeon X1950 XTX
	Features & Specifications

Features - 384 million transistors on 90nm fabrication process - Up to 48 pixel shader processors - 8 vertex shader processors - Up to 256-bit 8-channel GDDR4 memory interface - Native PCI Express x16 bus interface Ring Bus Memory Controller - Up to 512-bit internal ring bus for memory reads - Fully associative texture, color, and Z/stencil cache designs - Hierarchical Z-buffer with Early Z test - Lossless Z Compression (up to 48:1) - Fast Z-Buffer Clear - Optimized for performance at high display resolutions, including widescreen HDTV resolutions Ultra-Threaded Shader Engine - Support for Microsoft DirectX 9.0 Shader Model 3.0 programmable vertex and pixel shaders in hardware - Full speed 128-bit floating point processing for all shader operations - Up to 512 simultaneous pixel threads - Dedicated branch execution units for high performance dynamic branching and flow control - Dedicated texture address units for improved efficiency - 3Dc+ texture compression o High quality 4:1 compression for normal maps and two channel data formats - High quality 2:1 compression for luminance maps and single-channel data formats - Complete feature set also supported in OpenGL 2.0 Advanced Image Quality Features - 64-bit floating point HDR rendering supported throughout the pipeline o Includes support for blending and multi-sample anti-aliasing - 32-bit integer HDR (10:10:10:2) format supported throughout the pipeline o Includes support for blending and multi-sample anti-aliasing - 2x/4x/6x Anti-Aliasing modes o Multi-sample algorithm with gamma correction, programmable sparse sample patterns, and centroid sampling o New Adaptive Anti-Aliasing feature with Performance and Quality modes o Temporal Anti-Aliasing mode o Lossless Color Compression (up to 6:1) at all resolutions, including widescreen HDTV resolutions - 2x/4x/8x/16x Anisotropic Filtering modes o Up to 128-tap texture filtering o Adaptive algorithm with Performance and Quality options - High resolution texture support (up to 4k x 4k)

Avivo Video and Display Platform - High performance programmable video processor o Accelerated MPEG-2, MPEG-4, DivX, WMV9, VC-1, and H.264 decoding and transcoding o DXVA support o De-blocking and noise reduction filtering o Motion compensation, IDCT, DCT and color space conversion o Vector adaptive per-pixel de-interlacing o 3:2 pulldown (frame rate conversion) - Seamless integration of pixel shaders with video in real time - HDR tone mapping acceleration o Maps any input format to 10 bit per channel output - Flexible display support o Dual integrated dual-link DVI transmitters o Dual integrated 10 bit per channel 400 MHz DACs o 16 bit per channel floating point HDR and 10 bit per channel DVI output o Programmable piecewise linear gamma correction, color correction, and color space conversion (10 bits per color) o Complete, independent color controls and video overlays for each display o High quality pre- and post-scaling engines, with underscan support for all outputs o Content-adaptive de-flicker filtering for interlaced displays o Xilleon TV encoder for high quality analog output o YPrPb component output for direct drive of HDTV displays o Spatial/temporal dithering enables 10-bit color quality on 8-bit and 6-bit displays o Fast, glitch-free mode switching o VGA mode support on all outputs o Drive two displays simultaneously with independent resolutions and refresh rates - Compatible with ATI TV/Video encoder products, including Theater 550 CrossFire - Multi-GPU technology - Four modes of operation: o Alternate Frame Rendering (maximum performance) o Supertiling (optimal load-balancing) o Scissor (compatibility) o Super AA 8x/10x/12x/14x (maximum image quality)

      
Radeon X1950 XTX

The GPU at the heart of the Radeon X1950 XTX is essentially the same R580 found on the Radeon X1900 XTX. However, ATI informs us that the chip was re-spun to properly support the ultra-fast GDDR4 memory used on the card. As we've mentioned in the past, the R580 GPU comprised of approximately 380 million transistors and is built using a .09 micron manufacturing process. The GPU is outfitted with 48-pixel shader processors, 8-vertex shader processors, and a 256-bit 8-channel GDDR3/GDDR4 memory interface. The chip's internal Ring Bus memory controller operates at 512-bits, however.

Like the Radeon X1900 XTX, the X1950 XTX's core is clocked at 650MHz but the 512MB of GDDR4 memory on the X1950 XTX is clocked at an impressive 1GHz (2GHz DDR). This boost to the memory clock results in a healthy 64GB/s of memory bandwidth.  To help sustain these high clock speeds, the Radeon X1950 XTX sports a brand new segmented, copper cooler that is much quieter than previous models. The new cooler draws air in through a fan at the rear, blows air across the individual GPU and memory heatsinks, and then exhausts it out from the system.  The X1950's PCB is similar to the X1900 XTX's, but some obvious changes were made to implement the GDDR4 memory and to accommodate for the new cooler's fan.  And unlike previous CrossFire Edition cards, the Radeon X1950 XTX Master Card is configured in the exact same way.

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