Radeon R400 series

The ATi Radeon X Series is the latest offering from graphics card manufacturer ATi ( NASDAQ: ATYT) to counter rival Nvidia's (NASDAQ: NVDA) GeForce 6 Series. At first, ATi released the X800 series aimed at the enthusiast market, the three models in the X800 series are the X800 Pro, the X800 XT and the X800 XT Platnium Edition, which is just an overclocked X800 XT. All are avaliable in both AGP and PCI-Express form, except for the X800 Pro, which is available in only AGP form. Later ATi released the X600 and the X300 which are all only avaliable in PCI Express form. Recently ATi also announced the X700 series, which should appear in stores shortly, it is also only available in PCI Express form. When ATi released specifications for their X series, many users were surprised at the fact ATi had decided not to include support for shader model 3.0, as Nvidia had in their lineup of cards. ATi instead decided to use shader model 2.0b. It is also likely ATi will never release a shader model 3.0 card, and will stick with 2.0b until the release of shader model 4.0, or perhaps whatever comes next, example: shader model 3.0a.

Model performance

Models, in order of performance, (from lowest to highest):

Radeon X300SE
Radeon X300
Radeon X600 Pro
Radeon X600 XT
Radeon X700
Radeon X700 Pro
Radeon X700 XT
Radeon X800 Pro
Radeon X800 XT

Radeon X800 XT Platinum Edition

Model Specifications

Radeon X300SE

Core Clock: 325 Mhz
Memory Clock: 400Mhz
Pixel Pipelines: 4
Vertex Processors: 2
Memory: 128MB/256MB GDDR1 memory on a 64-bit interface
MSRP,(RRP): $79-$199 USD depending on display/memory configurations

Radeon X300

Core Clock: 325Mhz
Memory Clock: 400Mhz
Pixel Pipelines: 4
Vertex Processors: 4
Memory: 128MB/256MB GDDR1 memory on a 128-bit interface
MSRP,(RRP): $79-$199 USD depending on display/memory configurations

Radeon X600 Pro

Core Clock: 400
Memory Clock: 600
Pixel Pipelines: 4
Vertex Processors: 2
Memory: 128MB/256MB GDDR1 on a 128-bit interface
MSRP,(RRP): $199-$299 USD depending on display/memory configurations

Radeon X600 XT

Core Clock: 400Mhz
Memory Clock: 700Mhz
Pixel Pipelines: 4
Vertex Processors: 2
Memory: 128MB/256MB GDDR1 on a 128-bit interface
MSRP,(RRP): $199-$299 USD depending on display/memory configurations

Radeon X700

Core Clock: 400Mhz
Memory Clock: 700Mhz
Pixel Pipelines: 8
Vertex Processors: 6
Memory: 128MB GDDR1 on a 128-bit interface
MSRP,(RRP): $150 USD

Radeon X700 Pro

Core Clock: 420Mhz
Memory Clock: 864Mhz
Pixel Pipelines: 8
Vertex Processors: 6
Memory: 256MB GDDR-3 on a 128-bit interface
MSRP,(RRP): $199 USD

Radeon X700 XT

Core Clock: 475Mhz
Memory Clock: 1050Mhz
Pixel Pipelines: 8
Vertex Processors: 6
Memory: 128MB/256MB GDDR-3 on a 128-bit interface
MSRP,(RRP): $199-$299 USD depending on display/memory configurations

Radeon X800 Pro

Core Clock: 475Mhz
Memory Clock: 900Mhz
Pixel pipelines: 12
Vertex Processors: 6
Memory: 256MB GDDR-3 on a 256-bit interface
MSRP,(RRP): $399 USD

Radeon X800 XT

Core Clock: 500Mhz
Memory Clock: 1000Mhz
Pixel pipelines: 16
Vertex Processors: 6
Memory: 256MB GDDR-3 on a 256-bit interface
MSRP,(RRP): $450 USD

Radeon X800 XT Platnium Edition

Core Clock: 520Mhz
Memory Clock: 1120Mhz
Pixel pipelines: 16
Vertex Processors: 6
Memory: 256MB GDDR-3 on a 256-bit interface
MSRP,(RRP): $499 USD

Placement in market

Radeon X300SE: Low performance and cheap, made for OEMs. Nvidia GeForce 6 series counterpart: None.
Radeon X300: Low performance, also made for OEMs. Nvidia GeForce 6 series counterpart: None.
Radeon X600 Pro: Low peformance for someone on a budget. Nvidia GeForce 6 series counterpart: None.
Radeon X600 XT: Medium-low performance for cash strapped buyers. Nvidia GeForce 6 series counterpart: None.
Radeon X700: Medium performance for someone on a budget. Nvidia GeForce 6 series counterpart: GeForce 6600.
Radeon X700 XT: Medium-high perforance. Nvidia GeForce 6 series counterpart: GeForce 6600 GT.
Radeon X800 Pro: High performance for buyers and gamers with a high budget. Nvidia GeForce 6 series counterpart: GeForce 6800 GT.
Radeon X800 XT: High performance for gamers with a larger budget. Nvidia GeForce 6 series counterpart: GeForce 6800 Ultra
Radeon X800 XT Platnium Edition: Ultra-high performance for gamers with money to burn. Nvidia GeForce 6 series counterpart: GeForce 6800 Ultra Extreme Edition.

ATi Radeon X Series Features

SMARTSHADER™ 2.0

“SMARTSHADER™ 2.0 technology allows users to experience complex, movie-quality effects in next-generation 3D games and applications:

Programmable pixel and vertex shaders
16 textures per pass
Pixel shaders up to 160 instructions with 128-bit floating point precision
Realistic lighting of any kind of surface
Varying properties of a material across a surface
Accurate modelling of objects with microstructure
Horizon mapping
Vertex shaders up to 1024 instructions with flow control
Procedural deformation
Fur rendering
Advanced keyframe interpolation
Shadow volume extrusion
Particle systems
Many light sources
Lens effects
Advanced matrix palette skinning
Multiple render target support
Shadow volume rendering acceleration
High precision 10-bit per channel frame buffer support
Supports DirectX® 9.0 and the latest version of OpenGL giving developers the freedom to create more complicated effects than ever before

SMOOTHVISION™ 2.1

Technology provides new levels of image quality using state-of-the-art Anti-Aliasing (AA) and Anisotropic Filtering (AF) techniques.

Anti-aliasing enhances image quality by smoothing jagged edges on object outlines. SMOOTHVISION 2.1 uses an advanced multi-sampling technique that takes up to 6 samples per pixel, coupled with powerful loss-less compression technology for maximum efficiency and performance at any display resolution.

Anisotropic filtering improves image quality by sharpening blurry textures to bring out finer detail. SMOOTHVISION 2.1 employs an adaptive algorithm that takes from 1 to 16 filtered samples per pixel as required to achieve ideal quality, without wasting effort on parts of the image that would not benefit. Two modes allow this feature to be optimized for performance or image quality, as desired.

HyperZ III™+

The latest generation of ATI's innovative HYPER Z™ bandwidth saving technology, HYPER Z III+ plays a pivotal role in allowing RADEON 9800 series and RADEON 9600 series products to reach unprecedented levels of rendering performance. It builds on earlier versions of the technology by adding a more flexible Z-buffer cache that is optimized for the rendering of dynamic real-time shadows. Shadows play a key role in achieving realistic and immersive virtual environments, and will be used extensively in upcoming 3D game titles.

VIDEOSHADER™

The RADEON™ VPU continues to provide industry-leading video playback with VIDEOSHADER™ technology: a seamless integration of pixel shaders with video. The RADEON™ VPU also offers FULLSTREAM™ video de-blocking technology that removes blocky artifacts (noise removal filtering) for captured video and provides sharper image quality.

FULLSTREAM™

The latest advancement in video processing technology, is a hardware accelerated filtering method that improves the performance and visual quality of streaming video playback.

VideoSoap™

VideoSoap™ provides advanced filtering to reduce speckling, improve sharpness and smooth blurry motion to provide high quality personal video recordings.