Thanks to the Inquirer, the ATI R600XTX graphics card, codenamed Dragonshead, has been revealed from behind the curtain of mystery.
Not only is this new graphics crunching piece of hardware a fine product to look at, it's got some serious power beneath the hood, as well as a surprise up its sleeve.
In order to keep the 12.4 inch-long Dragonshead from overheating there is a cooler powered by four massive heat pipes that bear a nice resemblance to chrome pipes lining the skirts of a muscle car. The specs really help with that muscle car appearance, boasting 1024MB of 512Mbit GDDR4 memory, churning away at over 2000MHz. At the moment ATI has not released any final clock speeds, but it has been confirmed that the R600 model supports a 512Mbit controller and memory.
Dragonshead comes with two power connectors and introduces the new one 2x4 pins, and takes two slots in your motherboard. Retail stores should have one more version of the card that will be 9.5 inches. The big R600XTX card is the OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer) and SIs (System Integrator) card only, and has a March released date.
The fun don't stop there, kids. The Inquirer also shows off a product rendering of the Dragonshead 2, a 9.5 inch-long beast that will be coming to retail chains, the OEM-only version. Amazingly, the Dragonshead 2 boasts the same clock speed as the Dragonshead and comes with the same 1024MB GDDR4 memory in a 3/4 sized form factor. Dragonshead 2 will support Vivo and comes with Dual DVI, has a dual-slot heatsink and suckles on 240W of power (30W less than the Dragonshead). There are two 2x3 standard PCIe connectors. Thankfully, many power supply units already have these 2x3 pin connectors. These cards should also be available in late March.
Now comes the surprise news. The PCB design of these cards is actually a specific design, which will also be available in Crossfire mode, has only one customer right now: Apple, Inc.
There will almost certainly be other customers in the future, but it is quite the shocking turn of events that such a hot card be sitting on Apple's lap alone like a trophy wife. What's more, the Dragonshead cards have one design for both OEM-SI and retail/AIBs, and that is 8-pin/6-pin. A 6+6-pin configuration can be used, but without a 8-pin/6-pin, the ATI Catalyst driver suite will not allow for the "Overdrive Zone." Yes. There is a *legal* overclocking mode, ATI has not yet set the clocks and will wait until a couple days prior to launch.
Currently, the memory is estimated to float between 1 and 1.1GHz GDDR4 memory in DDR mode (2.0-2.2 GHz), while GPU clock will be set around 800MHz. The Inquirer believes that the GPU clock won't exceed 850MHz under the Overdrive, with current speculation being 826MHz. Their sources state that the clock bump should be around 10% for the GPU and 14% for the memory. This would set the total clock to 880/2400-2600. Another nice feature is a "smart" BIOS that will detect whether the GPU is leaking current and will throttle power to prevent any complications.
So there you have it. The Dragonshead graphics cards (dubbed the Radeon x2800 series) are spreading their wings and prepping to take your games and set them ablaze. Well.... as long as you have a Mac. I'll bet no one ever thought such a thing would ever happen.
Link To The Inquirer
In order to keep the 12.4 inch-long Dragonshead from overheating there is a cooler powered by four massive heat pipes that bear a nice resemblance to chrome pipes lining the skirts of a muscle car. The specs really help with that muscle car appearance, boasting 1024MB of 512Mbit GDDR4 memory, churning away at over 2000MHz. At the moment ATI has not released any final clock speeds, but it has been confirmed that the R600 model supports a 512Mbit controller and memory.
Dragonshead comes with two power connectors and introduces the new one 2x4 pins, and takes two slots in your motherboard. Retail stores should have one more version of the card that will be 9.5 inches. The big R600XTX card is the OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer) and SIs (System Integrator) card only, and has a March released date.
The fun don't stop there, kids. The Inquirer also shows off a product rendering of the Dragonshead 2, a 9.5 inch-long beast that will be coming to retail chains, the OEM-only version. Amazingly, the Dragonshead 2 boasts the same clock speed as the Dragonshead and comes with the same 1024MB GDDR4 memory in a 3/4 sized form factor. Dragonshead 2 will support Vivo and comes with Dual DVI, has a dual-slot heatsink and suckles on 240W of power (30W less than the Dragonshead). There are two 2x3 standard PCIe connectors. Thankfully, many power supply units already have these 2x3 pin connectors. These cards should also be available in late March.
Now comes the surprise news. The PCB design of these cards is actually a specific design, which will also be available in Crossfire mode, has only one customer right now: Apple, Inc.
There will almost certainly be other customers in the future, but it is quite the shocking turn of events that such a hot card be sitting on Apple's lap alone like a trophy wife. What's more, the Dragonshead cards have one design for both OEM-SI and retail/AIBs, and that is 8-pin/6-pin. A 6+6-pin configuration can be used, but without a 8-pin/6-pin, the ATI Catalyst driver suite will not allow for the "Overdrive Zone." Yes. There is a *legal* overclocking mode, ATI has not yet set the clocks and will wait until a couple days prior to launch.
Currently, the memory is estimated to float between 1 and 1.1GHz GDDR4 memory in DDR mode (2.0-2.2 GHz), while GPU clock will be set around 800MHz. The Inquirer believes that the GPU clock won't exceed 850MHz under the Overdrive, with current speculation being 826MHz. Their sources state that the clock bump should be around 10% for the GPU and 14% for the memory. This would set the total clock to 880/2400-2600. Another nice feature is a "smart" BIOS that will detect whether the GPU is leaking current and will throttle power to prevent any complications.
So there you have it. The Dragonshead graphics cards (dubbed the Radeon x2800 series) are spreading their wings and prepping to take your games and set them ablaze. Well.... as long as you have a Mac. I'll bet no one ever thought such a thing would ever happen.
Link To The Inquirer
