AMD opens up Radeon X1950XT to AIBs

AMD announced plans to let different manufacturers design and manufacture their own special Radeon X1950XT edition. Probably these special editions will feature lower price tags than the original edition from ATI.

This action has been taken in Mid-Nov where AMD provided a design reference for manufacturers to build up their own special models. Some of these special editions have been sent to AMD for verification and hopefully they will be available in the market in Mid-Jan. While the official Radeon X1950XT 256MB has a price of $279, the special editions are probably lower than that. Yet its rival remains the same as GeForce 7950GT 512MB.

Radeon X1950 has two family members, Radeon X1950XT and Radeon X1950XTX. Basically, they are the same, says 16 Pixel Shader Pineline, 48 Pixel Shader Processor, and 8 Vertex Shader. XT edition has a lower clock speed at 625MHz and features 1.55GHz DDR3, while XTX edition has a lower clock speed at 625MHz and features 1.8GHz DDR4. In this action, only Radeon X1950XT is involved, Radeon X1950XTX is still all made by AMD.

However, it's not sure how many manufacturers will jump onto this opportunity as the Radeon X1950XT is nearing the end of its life. The ATI R600 GPU should arrive in early 2007.