jmke

The late release of the X1900s caused everyone to expect something special. The upgrade of the R520 GPU, the R580, was expected to bring a few considerable changes to the table and there was little doubt that it would have an effect on which video card is at the top of the food chain. If nothing else, the time may have come for ATI's next-generation chip process to be make some serious strides forward. From an enthusiast standpoint ATI has been having a tough go of it lately. Because of this its partners have certainly had to tighten up and wait until ATI was back on top, or at least more competitive than it has been. Though the highest level of video cards only account for small percentage of total sales, they set the tone for the entire product line and give consumers an idea of what technology will be trickling down to more reasonably priced cards in the upcoming months. The cards in the current Radeon X1900 line are the XTX, XT, and Crossfire. PowerColor currently offers all three. The differences between these are not entirely that large, save for the inclusion of a Crossfire output on one model, past that there are just a few small changes in speed. PowerColor's X1900 XTX does not look much different ATI's model, or that offered by the ATI's other partner companies, so this card should be a good representative of the X1900 XTX at large, though many partners throw in a tweak here and there. The single factor which sets the X1900 series apart from any other video card on the market is that is has 48 pixel shaders. That's right, you read correctly- 48

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