ATI chips up graphic processing

OTTAWA: ATI Technologies Inc. is pulling the wraps off a new line of graphics chips for desktop computers, technology that works with PCI Express, a new high-speed computer connection standard.

In the latest leg of a fiercely competitive race with arch-rival Nvidia Corp., ATI is claiming technical superiority with its Radeon X800, Radeon X600 and Radeon X300 chips, which range from high-end to large volume, mainstream markets.

The stakes could be high as PC manufacturers move to incorporate PCI Express in coming months and then pick updated graphics cards.

ATI worked on the chips for almost three years with Intel Corp., which is expected to announce its PCI Express chip set later in June, the first manufacturer to use the technology.

"It is pushing the envelope because it is very complex technology," said ATI chief executive Dave Orton. "We wanted to line up the transition of our new products with the transition of this new interface."

The high-end X800 graphics chip will sell to the sub-$500 market, the mainstream X600 in the sub-$200 market and the X300 in the sub-$100 market.

ATI's newest line of chips has been designed to incorporate the PCI Express standard, while Nvidia has opted to use a bridge between the old and new standards.

The result, Orton said, is ATI technology that "shows off the full capabilities of PCI Express, and it won't burden the technologies from a cost or power standpoint." That means more bandwidth, or bigger "pipes" to carry data, and power management, the company says.

"Pretty much across the board we can sweep the design wins," Orton said. "These products continue to keep the ball rolling in ATI's favor."

ATI will also deliver volume shipments of its X300 PCI Express chips using the 110 nanometre production process, a reference to the width of features on the chip, which is an industry first Orton said.

Markham, Ontario-based ATI made the announcement at Computex, a major PC trade show in Taiwan, which kicks off technology for the back-to-school season. The company has already demonstrated real-time high definition video editing on a PCI Express platform in February.

Hardware enthusiast Web sites suggest it will take time to determine which chip supplier can claim technical victory.

"There is going to be a lot of fighting over the next few months about the performance of PCI Express-based graphics solutions," Anandtech.com's Derek Wilson wrote.

"Unfortunately, we won't really know what's what until we have hardware in our hands that we can play with to test real world performance."

© Reuters