ATI's R520 architecture will be introduced early October as the X1800 series, featuring the top-of-the-line Radeon X1800 XT with a 600MHz core clock and 700MHz memory clock. However, some "early" benchmark results could make one thinking about the performance of the upcoming architecture.
The Radeon X1800 XT features a 600MHz clockspeed combined with 16-pipelines for the graphics processor, while the 7800GTX graphics processor runs at just 430MHz. With 512MB GDDR3 memory connected by a 256-bit wide memory bus the X1800 XT boasts more memory than the 7800GTX, but as shown before with 512MB version of the GeForce 6800 Ultra this could not affect performance much.
The Radeon X1800 XT will ship with a $599 price tag, which is $100 to $150 more than what GeForce 7800GTX graphics cards are currently sold at. Other models in the Radeon X1800 series include the X1800 XL clocked at 550MHz core clock and 625MHz memory clock respectively at $499, the X1800 Pro at 500MHz with 256MB of memory running at 500MHz with a $449 price tag and to close the ranks ATI will offer a X1800 LE at 450MHz/450MHz for $349 with just 12-pipelines and 256MB of memory.
Website
Hardware Analysis has published the results of some popular benchmarks running with the X1800 XT and the X1800 PRO versions based on the the R520 architecture. The website also compares the results with those of Nvidia's 7800 series. The article concludes:
"..Overall it looks like the Radeon X1800 XT is good match for the GeForce 7800GTX, although in most games the GTX clearly takes the lead. The Radeon X1800 Pro is slightly slower than the GeForce 7800 GT.."
"...the MSRP is around $599 for the Radeon X1800 XT, which is up to $150 more expensive than the GeForce 7800GTX which is faster overall. Same applies to the Radeon X1800 Pro, which will retail at $449, you can buy a GeForce 7800GTX for that amount of money, which honestly hands the Radeon X1800 Pro its own behind..."
During the last months we have experienced numerous speculations regarding the implementation of ATI's R520 architecture. CDRInfo will come up with safer conclusions about the performance of this piece of hardware as soon as a sample come in house for evaluation.