Back on December 1, 2004 ATI officially announced their latest flagship GPU, the Radeon X850 XT Platinum Edition. The GPU powering the Radeon X850, previously code named R480, is an evolutionary product designed to improve yields and hit higher clock speeds than the older R423 GPU used on PCI Express variants of the Radeon X800. With some tweaks to their original design and a little maturity in their manufacturing process, ATI was able to release a "new" GPU that's faster than the previous generation, that should be easier to produce in quantity. Bringing out faster GPUs isn't the only by-product of maturity though. With time, most companies are also able to bring high-performing, more feature rich products to market at more affordable price points than the previous generation. And that's exactly the type of product we'll be looking at in this showcase of the ATI Radeon X800 XL.



Link: Hothardware