The ATI Radeon X Series is the latest offering from graphics card manufacturer ATI Technologies. It is a continuation of ATI's Radeon graphics card line.

Overview

The X series were the latest line of ATI cards that was meant to counter rival NVIDIA's 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. All are available 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 introduced the X700 series, which will for now also be available only 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. The 3.0 specification will be implemented in the not yet released R5xx series.

Model performance

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

• Radeon X300SE (RV370)
• Radeon X300 (RV370)
• Radeon X600 Pro (RV380)
• Radeon X600 XT (RV380)
• Radeon X700 (RV410)
• Radeon X700 Pro (RV410)
• Radeon X700 XT (RV410)
• Radeon X800 (R430)
• Radeon X800 Pro (R420/R423)
• Radeon X850 Pro (R480)
• Radeon X800 XL (R430)
• Radeon X800 XT (R420/R423)
• Radeon X800 XT Platinum Edition (R420/R423)
• Radeon X850 XT (R480)
• Radeon X850 XT Platinum Edition (R480)

Model series and specifications

Radeon X300 series

The X300 series is the PCI Express equivalent of the Radeon 9600, it is just based on new hardware. The X300SE series is a PCI Express equivalent of the Radeon 9600SE, and also just based on new hardware. Each of the series has the same set of features as the Radeon X models.

While the basic feature-set is identical to RV380, the RV370 core will be based on a 0.11 micrometre process.

X300SE

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

X300

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

Radeon X600 series

The X600 Pro series is the PCI Express equivalent of the Radeon 9600 Pro, but is based on new hardware.

The X600XT is the PCI Express equivalent of the Radeon 9600XT with higher core and memory clocks, the top-end card of the X600 series.

X600 Pro

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

X600 XT

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

Radeon X700 series

The X700 series replaced the X600 in September 2004. The X700 series has a similar core and memory setup to the Radeon 9500 Pro, only clocked much higher and produced on a 0.11 micrometre process.

The X700XT is the fastest version of the X700 series and it performs comparably to the 9800XT.

X700

• Core Clock: 400 MHz
• Memory Clock: 700 MHz
• Pixel Pipelines: 8
• Vertex Processors: 6
• Memory: 128 MiB GDDR1 on a 128-bit interface
• MSRP,(RRP): $150 US

X700 Pro

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

X700 XT

• Core Clock: 475 MHz
• Memory Clock: 1050 MHz
• Pixel Pipelines: 8
• Vertex Processors: 6
• Memory: 128 MiB/256 MiB GDDR-3 on a 128 bit interface
• MSRP,(RRP): $199-$299 US depending on display/memory configurations, but virtually unavailable for sale.

Radeon X800 series (0.13 micrometre)

The X800 series was launched in May 2004, based on the R420 core. The X800 units are essentially quad-core RV360 chips, produced on a 0.13 micrometre process and using GDDR-3 memory. In terms of supported DirectX features, they are almost identical to the R3xx cores.

The X800 graphics processing units were among the first to use PCI Express. These versions of the core use a slightly different version of the R420 core, designated the R423.

The highest-end version is the X800XT Platinum Edition, which has a fully-enabled R420 core. The X800XT is a slightly lower-clocked version.

The X800 Pro was the third released X800 card and it is similar to the X800XT, but with one fourth of the pixel pipelines disabled.

X800 Pro

• Core Clock: 475 MHz
• Memory Clock: 900 MHz
• Pixel pipelines: 12
• Vertex Processors: 6
• Memory: 256 MiB GDDR-3 on a 256 bit interface
• MSRP,(RRP): $399 US

X800 XT

• Core Clock: 500 MHz
• Memory Clock: 1000 MHz
• Pixel pipelines: 16
• Vertex Processors: 6
• Memory: 256 MiB GDDR-3 on a 256 bit interface
• MSRP,(RRP): $450 US

X800 XT Platinum Edition

• Core Clock: 520 MHz
• Memory Clock: 1120 MHz
• Pixel pipelines: 16
• Vertex Processors: 6
• Memory: 256 MiB GDDR-3 on a 256 bit interface
• MSRP,(RRP): $499 US

The Radeon X800 XT Platinum Edition is in very limited availability so it typically sold for a higher price than the one quoted above.

Commonly referred to by the community as Phantom Edition.

Radeon X800 series (0.11 micrometre)

The Radeon X800 0.11 micrometre series were introduced at the end of 2004 along with ATi's new X850 cards. While the X800 is a great alternative to the X700XT, the X800XL is ATi's new competitor for nVidia's GeForce 6800 GT, delivering about the same performance at a much lower price.

X800

• Core Clock: 400 MHz
• Memory Clock: 700 MHz
• Pixel pipelines: 12
• Vertex Processors: 6
• Memory: 128 MiB on a 256 bit interface
• MSRP,(RRP): $249 US

X800 XL

• Core Clock: 400 MHz
• Memory Clock: 1000 MHz
• Pixel pipelines: 16
• Vertex Processors: 6
• Memory: 256 MiB on a 256 bit interface
• MSRP,(RRP): $349 US

Radeon X850 Series

ATI has recently released the X850 series which have a little more performance than the X800 series and will be avaliable in 3 forms: the X850 Pro, the X850 XT, and the X850 XT Platinum Edition. The X850 series should be available in much larger quantities.

The Radeon X850XT Platinum Edition is currenty ATI's most powerful video card to compete with the nVidia GeForce 6800 Ultra.

X850 Pro

• Core Clock: 520 MHz
• Memory Clock: 1080 MHz
• Pixel pipelines: 12
• Vertex Processors: 6
• Memory: 256 MiB on a 256 bit interface
• MSRP,(RRP): $399 US

X850 XT

• Core Clock: 520 MHz
• Memory Clock: 1080 MHz
• Pixel pipelines: 16
• Vertex Processors: 6
• Memory: 256 MiB on a 256 bit interface
• MSRP,(RRP): $499 US

X850 XT Platinum Edition

• Core Clock: 540 MHz
• Memory Clock: 1180 MHz
• Pixel pipelines: 16
• Vertex Processors: 6
• Memory: 256 MiB on a 256 bit interface
• MSRP,(RRP): $549 US

Placement in market

• Radeon X300SE: Low performance and cheap, made for OEMs. Nvidia GeForce 6 series counterpart: GeForce 6200.
• Radeon X300: Low performance, also made for OEMs. Nvidia GeForce 6 series counterpart: GeForce 6200.
• 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 performance. 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 Platinum Edition: Ultra-high performance for gamers with money to burn. Nvidia GeForce 6 series counterpart: GeForce 6800 Ultra Extreme Edition.