ATI RADEON X850 XT 512MB Technology Preview

Price and availability

Unfortunately, here comes the tricky part. While ATI has now officially demonstrated their 512MB technology, that doesn’t mean you’ll be able to go out and buy a 512MB X850 XT tomorrow. As of right now, ATI has no official plans to introduce a 512MB card to the public.

We put the words “official” in bold font because ATI hasn’t exactly nailed down their final plans for this board. You just may seem them produce a 512MB card, or they may not. Yesterday’s demonstration was considered a “technology preview” of what is to come (hint: think next generation product) and what ATI is capable of doing today. 512MB graphics cards are being shipped to game developers however, and will be used in the production of upcoming games, particularly those from Ubisoft and Valve Software.

If ATI doesn’t step up to the plate however, that doesn’t mean that one of their board partners won’t. Technically, Tier One board partners such as ASUS, Gigabyte, MSI, PowerColor, or Sapphire could take on the challenge of producing a 512MB card if they decide to do so, as the board design is pretty similar to existing X850 XT cards. So far no one has announced plans to produce such a card, but that doesn’t mean that it won’t happen at some point in the near future.

Conclusion

What’s our take on this? Obviously seeing 512MB on a graphics card is impressive, but we’d like to know more about the board’s performance.

ATI claims a 20-30% performance improvement over a stock X850 XT in DOOM 3, multiple areas in Half-Life 2, and Far Cry, allowing the 512MB card to even outperform the more expensive X850 XT Platinum Edition, but only one resolution was given: 1600x1200 with 6xAA and 16xAF. This is hardly enough information to come to any definite performance conclusions about the board. Does the additional memory introduce so much latency that the 256MB X850 XT significantly outperforms the 512MB at lower resolutions, or is the performance impact barely noticeable? We’d also be curious to see how the board performs at 2048x1536, which is finally becoming a viable resolution for today’s high-end cards. Hopefully the additional RAM brings performance benefits to additional scenarios beyond just 1600x1200 with 6xAA/16xAF.

X850 XT-512 performance. Source: ATI

The other potential downfall of a 512MB X850 XT card would be price. Already 256MB cards retail for $500, doubling the amount of memory would likely drive the price up to $600 or more. This is well outside the budget of most gamers, and with next generation cards right around the corner (remember, ATI has been pretty good at introducing new high-end products every 6-9 months), dropping $600 or more on a 512MB card may not make much sense to a lot of people.

But at the same time, the words “rational” and “value” don’t really apply to the hardcore enthusiast crowd. These guys always want the latest and greatest, and a 512MB X850 card would certainly earn you major bragging rights. This is where ATI or one of their board partners could step in, as a 512MB card could certainly boost their prestige among enthusiasts.

This is why we wouldn’t be surprised to see someone eventually produce a 512MB X850 card at some point in the near future; the opportunity is just too great to pass up. NVIDIA and Gainward certainly knew what was coming, pre-announcing a water-cooled GeForce 6800 Ultra with extreme clock speeds just days before ATI's public demonstration.

ATI has obviously done the research and testing on a 512MB card, so why not produce a limited edition run of say 500 cards. All of ATI’s Tier One partners produce other products besides video cards, so you could round the package out with other goodies such as a motherboard or consumer electronics device, or better yet, really jazz up the game bundle.

Regardless of what is or isn’t produced though, we’ll certainly be eager to report on whatever happens!