ATI's Radeon Achieves GigaTexel Speeds

ATI demonstrated its latest graphics card dubbed 'Radeon 256' at the WinHEC conference earlier this week. The new card is touted as the fastest chip the company has ever released. The new graphics hardware features a 1.5 GigaTexel/second fill rate, 128 megabytes of 200-MHz ram, and 8 GB/second Effective Memory bandwidth. ATI's new card is the first to surpass the GigaTexel fill rate.

ATI began to aim towards the 3D graphics market with the release of their Rage 128 chip. Though this chip performed fairly well, development and production delays detered its opportunity to become a real competitor in the high-end market. ATI is now attempting to take the 3D performance crown with the Radeon graphics card.

Though unofficially announced, the company will also be releasing a multi-chip version of the Radeon. This version is expected to be named the 'Radeon 256 MAXX.' With dual chip support, the Radeon will feature dual-monitor output since each Radeon chip will have its own memory and fully functional 2D subsystem.