Specifications
MAXIMUMPC JANUARY 200536
You can expect a new series of videocards
from ATI starting in December 2004. These
cards aren’t entirely new cores—after all,
the R420 core that powers current X800
boards is only six months old. But they will
be enhanced with faster clock speeds, and
the changes will result in faster high-end 3D
performance.
Dubbed Radeon X850, the R480-based
boards will replace the current Radeon X800
fl eet and come in three
fl avors: Radeon X850 XT
Platinum Edition, Radeon
X850 XT, and Radeon X850
Pro. Both of the X850 XT
cards will use a dual-slot
cooling solution similar
to nVidia’s GeForce 6800
Ultra boards. Flat-panel
fans take note: The X850
XT Platinum Edition and
X850 XT will both feature
dual DVI outputs!
On the midrange front,
it appears that the new
R430-based boards—the
X800 XL and X800—will
be the fi rst real competition for nVidia’s Ge-
Force 6800 GT line. Because of its 0.11-micron
process and 16 pipelines, our expectation is
that the Radeon X800 XL should perform near-
ly as well as the X850 XT when overclocked.
None of the new ATI boards support Shad-
er Model 3.0; this isn’t a huge shortcoming
because only a handful of games support
it. While the number of Shader Model 3.0
games will likely increase in 2005, it’s prob-
able that by the end of the year the spec will
still not have reached critical mass.
We have yet to receive any of these boards
for testing, but based on the specifi cations,
our Lab estimates that the high-end X850 XT
Platinum Edition boards will exhibit between
5 and 10 percent faster performance than
current X800 XT Platinum Edition cards. Time
will tell for sure.
tECH pREVIEW
SPEC SPEAK: How ATI’s new videocards match up
RADEON X850 XT
PLATINUM EDITION
RADEON
X850 XT
RADEON
X850 PRO
RADEON
X800 XL
RADEON
X800
PIPELINES 16 16 12 16 12
PROCESS SIZE
0.13-micron 0.13-micron 0.13-micron 0.11-micron 0.11-micron
CORE CLOCK
540MHz 520MHz 520MHz 400MHz 400MHz
MEMORY CLOCK
590MHz 540MHz 540MHz 490MHz 350MHz
MEMORY TYPE
256-bit GDDR3 256-bit GDDR3 256-bit GDDR3 256-bit GDDR3 256-bit GDDR3
MEMORY SIZE
256MB 256MB 256MB 256MB 128MB, 256MB
PRICE $550 $500 $400 $350 $250
ATI’s R480 and R430
Re-spin the silicon for higher clock speeds and higher yields
Open Source Software
2005 is the year open source goes mainstream
nForce4 SLI
nVidia’s revolutionary
mobo may make it a bad
year for Intel
A lot of hype has developed around
nVidia’s new chipset, and from what our
early Lab tests have indicated, it’s well
deserved. The nForce4 SLI chipset could
change several dynamics in the PC
universe. First, it will be the fi rst chipset
to give consumers an affordable and
practical option for easily achieving a
signifi cant boost in 3D performance.
Here’s how: If you can’t afford two
GeForce 6800 GT cards today, you can
just buy one now and then when the
price has plummeted, buy a second card
and enable SLI.
Because SLI is an nVidia technology, we
expect it will work best with the nForce4
chipset. Here’s an interesting thought:
If SLI becomes the de facto standard for
power users, Intel could be left empty-
handed in the high-end market because it
doesn’t have a chipset that supports dual-
videocard technology.
One of the biggest surprises of the last few years has been the incredible success of
Mozilla’s lean-and-mean Firefox web browser. When Maximum PC fi rst mentioned
Firefox in November 2003—it was called Firebird back then—the alternative browser
was so far under the radar, it was on sonar. Since then, Firefox has become the
browser of choice for the techno-
elite, with some geek-friendly
sites showing 20 percent of their
traffi c from Firefox users.
The secret to Firefox’s success
is a one-two punch of a simple,
easy-to-use interface, and a plugin
architecture that lets anyone add
functionality to the browser. This
stands in stark contrast to tradi-
tional open-source apps, which of-
fer tons of functionality, but sport
intimidating and diffi cult-to-use
interfaces that scare novices.
Our prediction: In 2005, many
open-source developers will follow
Firefox’s lead and build more ac-
cessible apps, while still catering to
power users with advanced plugins.
We think Firefox’s 1.0 release will usher
in a new era of easy-to-use, open-source
applications.