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ATI X1300 Pro

Last week ATI unveiled an entirely new lineup of video cards that covered the entire price range from top to bottom. Though many of the products announced will not be available for another month or so, ATI has said that it's X1800XL in the high mid range should be available immediately, as well as its new low end cards, the X1300 series.

We have an X1300 Pro test sample for review today, which looks to replace last years midrange in performance numbers, with this years low end. It's an aggressive move, and of the three new series of cards released last week, the one that actually matters the most. It will be variations on the X1300 that make it into new systems from the large mass market system builders, and people looking to play the latest games will be turning to this card as an inexpensive solution.

Here's the chart from our last article highlighting the entire ATI family.

Specifications

For a full description of the X1300 pro's features, please see our earlier article here. What makes this card attractive though is its relatively low price point, coupled with all the same features that are available in the current top of the line card, the X1800 XT. Whether or not things like Adaptive Anti Aliasing turn out to be useful in a lower spec card like the 1300 will have to be seen, but the fact that ATI offers all of the new features right down to the bottom of the line is impressive.

The performance of the card in 3D games will ultimately be what sells this card though. ATI seem to be utilizing the same strategy from the top of their line on down as far as bandwidth goes. The new cards all opt for a high clock speed/low pipeline count setup, most likely due to the benefits of moving to the 90 nanometer process. ATI can run their cores at high speed without the usual heat problems that larger process cores produce. This lets them get away with fewer pipes while maintaining competitive levels of bandwidth.