In an announcement many have been anticipating since the cancellation of Macworld Paris in October, ATI Technologies has finally announced and demonstrated their next-generation Radeon 8500 Mac Edition to a thrilled Expo crowd. If you have read either one of our in-depth reports on these cards, you know this is one press release worth waiting for: these cards should be out next month and ship for a lower price than you would expect.
ATI Technologies Inc. (TSE:ATY, NASDAQ:ATYT), a world leader in the supply of graphics, video and multimedia solutions, today introduced the RADEON(tm) 8500 MAC EDITION graphics board, based on ATI's feature-rich and innovative RADEON 8500 GPU (graphics processing unit).The RADEON 8500 retail graphics board for the Mac platform, featuring a core clock speed of 250 MHz and a memory clock speed of 275 MHz, as well as 64 MB of DDR memory, will power users through graphics intensive business applications or the most challenging games on the market. The RADEON 8500 Mac Edition delivers up to 25 percent higher performance than the nearest competitive product (1). Available in February, it has a suggested retail price of (US) $299.
"The RADEON 8500 MAC EDITION delivers a new standard of performance, functionality and visual quality for Macintosh gaming and 3D design," said Stan Ossias, Product Manager, Mac Products, Desktop Marketing, ATI Technologies Inc. "Not only will the RADEON 8500 MAC EDITION offer an unbelievable gaming experience, but the new technologies in this GPU, bring new features and functions into the professional space as well."
The RADEON 8500 MAC EDITION brings many experience-enhancing technologies to the Macintosh platform such as:
* TRUFORM(tm), ATI's innovative rendering technology that helps deliver smooth and natural 3D images in a performance-efficient manner;
* SMOOTHVISION(tm), ATI's FSAA (Full Scene Anti-Aliasing) technology, designed to minimize jagged edges and smooth images;
* SMARTSHADER(tm), ATI's advanced programmable pixel and vertex shader technology is also enabled in the GPU's hardware, allowing for more complex and realistic texture and lighting effects without sacrificing performance;
* HYPER Z(tm) II, a next-generation memory bandwidth saving technology that boosts rendering performance by 20 percent;
* CHARISMA ENGINE(tm) II, which supports transform, clipping and lighting (T & L) at 62.5 million triangles/second peak processing capability;
* PIXEL TAPESTRY(tm) II, the RADEON 8500's 3D rendering engine, which uses four rendering pipelines to process an incredible 2 gigatexels per second for incredibly high fill rates in 32-bit color at high resolutions; and
* VIDEO IMMERSION(tm) II, a second-generation technology that enables integration of industry-leading digital video features, including DVD (digital versatile disc) video playback and advanced de-interlacing algorithms for unprecedented video quality.
The AGP card, which is compatible with both Mac OS 9 and Mac OS X, is an ideal replacement for older, factory-installed graphics cards in Power Mac computers. It also features multiple display capability, supporting a variety of combinations of output through DVI-I, VGA and TV-out connectors.
For more information on these cards and their capabilities, read through our two detailed previews (one with many movies and screen shots of the card in action).
