AMD Launches ATI Radeon HD Product Line

AMD officially announces its new Radeon HD lineup of graphics cards, bringing DirectX 10 support to the Radeon family. Like NVIDIA, AMD adopts a stream processor architecture for the Radeon HD series of cards and the first to be made available will be the Radeon HD 2900 XT, based on the 80 nanometer R600 GPU. The Radeon HD 2900 XT features 740/1650 MHz core/memory clock speeds, 320 stream processors shaders and 512MB GDDR3 video memory.

AMD will also prepare Radeon HD 2600 and Radeon HD 2400 cards based on the 65 nanometer RV630 and RV610 GPUs, respectively. Both cards will be available in XT and Pro versions, and will see wider release in the near future.

The ATI Radeon HD 2000 series of products introduces immersive DirectX 10 gaming enabling the next generation of visual effects at every price point. The line-up boasts many firsts for the graphics industry, including a powerful second-generation Unified Shader Architecture (USA), a 512 Mbit memory bus designed for full performance high dynamic range (HDR) rendering, and new Unified Video Decoder (UVD) technology for high-fidelity HD multimedia playback.1 The mid-range and entry-level GPUs are the first graphics products in the industry to use an energy-efficient 65 nm process technology to achieve silent, passive cooling, high performance and lower power consumption.2 The ATI Radeon HD 2000 series also builds on AMD’s Windows Vista leadership. Having been the first graphics company to introduce a WHQL driver for Windows Vista, ATI Catalyst drivers continue to deliver industry-leading game compatibility and an extremely stable user experience in Windows Vista.

"ATI Radeon HD 2000 graphics cards provide us with more than incremental speed increases," said Gabe Newell, co-founder and president of Valve. "Through the ATI Radeon HD 2000’s performance and unified shader model we are able to create characters in real time that reach beyond anything seen in any game, and rival the characters seen in animated feature films. Gamers will be able to experience these advances later this year when Half Life 2: Episode Two, Team Fortress 2 and Portal will be made available through Steam to those who purchase a new ATI Radeon HD 2900 XT."

Neoseeker's own Radeon HD 2900 XT will be ready shortly, so get ready for our take on the new card.