Radeon 9600

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That brings us to ATi's new mainstream product, the Radeon 9600, which will replace the 9500 series.

The Radeon 9600 VPU (alias RV350) is a fully DirectX 9 compliant chip and is based largely on the R300 core (more a mix between R300/R350), but with a few features omitted. Also, it is ATi's first chip to be produced on the same 0.13 micron process as the GeForceFX. As a result, it requires less current, can run at higher clock speeds, and produces less heat. The number of pixel pipelines has been reduced from eight to four, and the vertex shader units have also seen a cut, from four to only two. On paper, these cuts seem like a definite step backwards from both the Radeon 9500 and 9500 PRO. The RV350 does add the new "SmoothVision 2.1" and "SmartShader 2.0" enhancements, though, without "F-Buffer". The "Hyper-Z" optimizations, on the other hand, are still on the same level as that of the "old" R300, meaning 8:1 "Lossless Z" compression instead of the R350's 24:1 compression factor.

  ATI Radeon 9500 ATI Radeon 9500 PRO ATI Radeon 9600 PRO
Chip Technology 256-bit 256-bit 256-bit
Process 0.15 Micron 0.15 Micron 0.13 Micron
Transistors -unknown ~107 Mio -unknown
Memory Bus 128-bit DDR 128-bit DDR 128-bit DDR/2
Memory Bandwidth 8.8 GB/s 8.8 GB/s 9.6 GB/s
Pixel Fillrate 1.1 Gigapixel/s 2.2 Gigapixel/s 1.6 Gigapixel/s
Anti Aliased Fillrate - unknown 13.2 Billion AA Samples/s - unknown
AGP Bus 1x/2x/4x/8x 1x/2x/4x/8x 1x/2x/4x/8x
Memory 64MB 128MB 128MB
GPU Clock 275 MHz 275 MHz 400 MHz
Memory Clock 270 MHz (540 DDR) 275 MHz (550 DDR) 300 MHz (600 DDR)
Memory -unknown BGA 3.6 ns -unknown
Vertex Shader 4 4 4
Pixel Pipelines 4 8 4
Texture Units Per Pipe 1 1 1
Textures per Texture Unit 16 16 16
Vertex S. Version 2 2 2
Pixel S. Version 2 2 2
DirectX Generation 9 9 9
FSAA Modi MultiSampling MultiSampling MultiSampling
Memory Optmizations Hyper Z III Hyper Z III Hyper Z III
Optmizations SmartShader 2.0
SmoothVision 2.0		 SmartShader 2.0
SmoothVision 2.0		 SmartShader 2.0
SmoothVision 2.1
Display Outputs 2 2 2
Chip Internal Ramdacs 2 x 400 MHz 2 x 400 MHz 2 x 400 MHz
Chip External Ramdacs - - -
Bits per Color Channel 10 10 10
Special TV Encoder On-Chip; FullStream
Adaptive Filtering		 TV Encoder On-Chip; FullStream
Adaptive Filtering		 TV Encoder On-Chip; FullStream
Adaptive Filtering
Estimated Price $179 (old price) $199 (old price) $169-$199

While we already have a review sample of the Radeon 9800 PRO, we won't be able to take a look at the 9600, since it won't be launched until later this month.

9600 Card Versions

Radeon 9600 PRO 128MB DDR (400/600) - available April 2003 - price: $169-$199,- Radeon 9600 64/128MB DDR (325/400) - available April 2003 - price: $149-$169,-

And the features of the Radeon 9600 VPU (RV350) in summary:

DirectX 9 4 pixel pipelines (4x1 design) 2 vertex shader units 0.13 micron manufacturing process 128-bit DDR Memory (DDR-II ready) Up to 128MB Memory SmartShader 2.0 SmoothVision 2.1 (optimized FSAA, AA & memory controller, 6:1 color compression) HyperZ III (8:1 Z-compression)

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