More ATI R600 details leak

ATI's last high-end card, the X1950XTX. It is to be replaced by the X2900XTX

Yet more details have leaked about ATI 's much-vaunted yet much delayed series of DirectX 10 graphics cards. Codenamed R600, the series of cards were supposed to have been given their European launch this week in Amsterdam.

As we've previously reported , the part has been much delayed. So it's with great interest that we report on some more details that have leaked about the cards. Namely, their rather-predictable product names - the Radeon X2900XTX, X2900XT and the lower end X2900XL

The top end Radeon X2900XTX is to be available in a commercially-available 9.5-inch board, but also as a 12.4-inch whopper meant for the OEM market. The purchasable card will also need a whopping 240W of power via two PCI Express graphics power connectors, one 6-pin and one 8-pin.

The top card will have 1GB of latest generation GDDR4 memory, while the lower end parts will make do with 512MB of GDDR3. TweakTown suggests the card will have "twice the power" of ATI's last top-end attempt, the R580 series.

The site also indicates that the launch date of 30 March is still on, but we'd suggest there's no chance of AMD-owned ATI having shipping quantities by then. However, demo cards were delivered to ATI's partners last week and spies suggest a sample is floating around at CeBIT.

Nvidia is also struggling with its DirectX 10 compatible cards, as we reported earlier.

Contributor

Dan (Twitter, Google+) is TechRadar's Former Deputy Editor and is now in charge at our sister site T3.com. Covering all things computing, internet and mobile he's a seasoned regular at major tech shows such as CES, IFA and Mobile World Congress. Dan has also been a tech expert for many outlets including BBC Radio 4, 5Live and the World Service, The Sun and ITV News.