Latest info about ATI HD 2xxx series graphics cards

[Anusha]

Radeon HD 2900XL in late June

A $279 card

R600 will have even more iterations and the cheaper version of the chip will be called XL and it is scheduled for late June.

We don’t have a lot of details about the specifications, but we know that it should cost around $279 and be a direct competitor to the Geforce 8800 GTS 320 cards.

The Radeon HD 2900XL comes with 512 MB of memory.

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Radeon HD 2900 XT 1024 DDR4 to launch on the 14th, renamed from XTX

ATI will quietly introduce the R600XTX card with 1024 MB of memory, but this card will be an OEM baby only. There won't be any retailers selling this 12.4 inch card, only the big OEMs will get it. We wrote about these cards here.

This card might end up slightly faster than the Radeon HD 2900XT 512 MB DDR3, but the faster memory wont mean that much faster performance. The memory on the 1024 MB card works at 2.2 GHz.

You might notice that the card is also renamed to Radeon HD 2900XT 1024 DDR4 and that ATI didn't dare to use the XTX brand. This means that something faster is coming.

[Anusha]

R650 is the Radeon HD 2950XTX

ATI hasn't launched the R600 yet and it is already planning its next launch of a die shrinked version. It won't be launching the 1024 MB graphics card until Q3. It plans to launch the R650 chip and brand it as Radeon HD 2950XTX, 1024 MB GDDR4.

The chip is called R650 and it is a 65 nanometre core, how convenient. With this new chip ATI might have a fighting chance against the Geforce 8800 Ultra, but the real question is what will Nvidia have at that time.

The cards are scheduled for late Q3, so you should expect them to arrive in August or September, unless they get postponed.