The Radeon X1900 cards

As you can expect, all this new horsepower doesn’t come cheap. And while the Radeon X1900 officially replaces the Radeon X1800, we don’t expect that transition to take place overnight. Let’s go over the cards ATI is introducing today first, then we’ll explain:

The Radeon X1900 Family
	Pixel Shaders	Core Clock Speed	Memory Speed	Onboard Memory	MSRP
Radeon X1900 XTX	48	650	775	512MB	$649
Radeon X1900 XT	48	625	725	512MB	$549
Radeon X1900 CrossFire	48	625	725	512MB	$599
All-In-Wonder Radeon X1900	48	500	480	512MB	$500

At the high-end of the Radeon X1900 lineup is the Radeon X1900 XTX. This is the take-no-prisoners flagship card that gamers who crave the very most performance are going to want. The surprising part about ATI’s new flagship is just how similar it is to the Radeon X1900 XT: with a 650MHz graphics core, the Radeon X1900 XTX is only clocked 25MHz higher than the Radeon X1900 XT!

In all honesty, we’re not quite sure what to make of this. This certainly isn’t the first time ATI has launched two new GPUs so evenly matched with each other, just over a year ago today the Radeon X850 XT Platinum Edition and Radeon X850 XT were separated by similar clocks, but in that case both cards were only separated by an MSRP of $50: in comparison, today’s Radeon X1900 XT and X1900 XTX are priced about $100 apart if you go by ATI’s official MSRP for the cards.

On one hand, you could say that it looks like ATI’s pricing the X1900 XTX at such a premium to ensure that demand doesn’t outstrip supply – a case which repeated itself on multiple occasions for ATI over the past 12-18 months. But on the other hand, both cards are still clocked so similarly, so if yields really were bad on R580, we don’t think 25MHz would make much of a difference in the X1900 XT’s favor. Therefore, this theory doesn’t really make much sense either.

Like we said, we really don’t know what to think of this. But one thing’s clear: today’s X1900 launch confirms that the price of high-end graphics cards isn’t going down anytime soon. It also confirms that ATI knows there are a lot of people out there with more money than sense, as anyone who must stick to a budget is going to opt for a Radeon X1900 XT instead of the XTX, as the two cards are clocked so similarly.

At least high-end gamers on a budget will be glad to see that the X1900 XT is so close to the flagship XTX.

Priced between the Radeon X1900 XT and the X1900 XTX is the Radeon X1900 CrossFire card. The Radeon X1900 CrossFire card shares the exact same clocks as the Radeon X1900 XT of 625MHz core/725MHz memory (1.45GHz effective), so Radeon X1900 XTX users may be a little upset, but at least their XTX slave board will continue to operate at its stock frequencies of 650MHz/775MHz, so you’re not losing much. Perhaps CrossFire’s presence priced between both X1900 cards explains ATI’s pricing strategy this time around for the X1900 family, but if that’s the case we can’t help but feel a little disappointed with this line of thought. After all, NVIDIA users don’t have to pay a $50 premium for a master SLI card to increase performance. This premium ATI is currently charging for CrossFire is part of what’s holding the platform back in our opinion and we think it would help both ATI and ATI enthusiasts if it went away and the Radeon X1900 CrossFire carried the same MSRP as the Radeon X1900 XT.

The final card ATI is announcing today is the All-In-Wonder X1900. This is in some ways, perhaps the second-most interesting card launched today behind the Radeon X1900 XT. This is because for starters, this is the first time ATI has provided a multimedia All-In-Wonder card based on new technology the same day as the more conventional desktop PC cards are announced. Previously All-In-Wonder cards didn’t hit the market until a few months after.

Secondly, with an MSRP of $499, it’s the least expensive card based on X1900 technology ATI’s currently offering. So if you want to see what all the fuss about 48 pixel shaders is without having to pay a king’s ransom, this would be the least expensive way to do it. And finally, its clock speeds of 500MHz core/480MHz memory may provide an indication of where ATI would be heading with a vanilla Radeon X1900 card if such a card were to be announced in the future. ATI was actually shooting for 500/500 with the AIW X1900, but ultimately had to settle for 480MHz on the memory in order to get the card to market in time for today’s launch.

The All-In-Wonder X1900 supports all the multimedia and FM/TV tuning features of its predecessor, the All-In-Wonder X1800 XL, although some gamers may be disappointed to hear that like the AIW X1800 XL, the AIW X1900 doesn’t currently support ATI’s CrossFire mode. For the All-In-Wonder cards ATI continues to emphasize multimedia, so gamers that would like to mix a little CrossFire-loving with the AIW X1900’s multimedia capabilities will be best served by going with one of ATI’s external TV tuner cards like the TV Wonder Elite or the TV Wonder PRO.

Availability

The number one question that’s been asked of ATI with every new product release as of late revolved around availability. After a checkered history of product launches, it’s a reputation that ATI has definitely earned. With today’s Radeon X1900 release ATI hopes to resolve this by providing cards for sale on launch day. Retail boards have already been shipped to may popular e-tailers, while ATI will also be providing cards for purchase on their own website, shop.ati.com. We’ll be keeping our eyes open to see if they can deliver this time around.