ATI Targets Mid-Range With Radeon X1950 Pro Boston MA

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Originally published at Internet.com

Graphics player ATI this week launched a new addition to its line-up of mid-range graphic cards, the Radeon X1950 Pro.

Designed to offer similar features to those found on ATI's high-end cards, the X1950 Pro cuts costs by ramping down clock and memory speed. Compared to the top-of-the-line X1900 XTX, the new X1950 Pro offers a clock speed of 575MHz, down from 650MHz. Memory speeds are down from 1.55GHz to 1.38GHz, and the new card also comes with 36 pixel shader processors - the XTX offers 48.

According to ATI, the Radeon X1950 Pro includes features found in its flagship Radeon X1950 XTX, including FP16 High Dynamic Range effects with simultaneous anti-aliasing. The card also offers 10-bit throughout the graphics pipeline, and HDCP compliance.

The new X1950 Pro is also the first ATI card to make use of what the company describes as "native CrossFire" technology, a simplification of the requirements for its CrossFire multi-GPU setup. Native CrossFire eliminates the need for a CrossFire Edition-branded card in a multi-GPU configuration - in other words, a dedicated slave or master card - relying instead on bridge cables that connect multiple cards.

The new Radeon X1950 Pro is expected to carry a street price of $199.

"The Radeon X1950 Pro is incredibly good value," said Rick Bergman, senior vice president and general manager in ATI's PC business. "Bringing ATI's high-end features into the mid-range gives gamers blistering performance and gorgeous image quality that's unmatched at this price."

According to Bergman, the native CrossFire enhancement makes it "easier than ever for gamers to get up and running with a CrossFire setup." He added, "ATI will continue to enhance CrossFire to be more open, flexible and easy to use, giving gamers the superior performance they expect from our products." Quick Specs: ATI Radeon X1950 Pro
Source: ATI Technologies
Bus Type PCI Express Memory 256-bit 8-channel GDDR3
Ring bus memory controller Pixel Shaders 36 Vertex Shaders 8 Multi-GPU Support Yes (Native CrossFire) Shader Details Microsoft DirectX 9 Shader Model 3.0B
OpenGL 2.0 AA/AF Features 2x/4x/6x Anti-Aliasing
2x/4x/8x/16x Anisotropic Filtering Video Features Avivo video and display features MPEG1/2/4 decode and encode acceleration Output 10-bit, 16-bit HDR DVI output
YPrPb component
Max resolution >2560x1600