ATI ships a new set of AGP cards

The company announced AGP 8X versions of the Radeon X800 XL and X850 XT graphics chips, and this comes three months after the company released the PCI Express versions.

Last December, ATI released the X850 series of graphics processors as a new high-end version for its desktop product line. The X800-XL takes the X800 family to an entry level price point. The new chips shared their architecture with the X800 family, but featured a higher clock speed.

The 16-pixel pipe X850 XT PE included a 540 MHz core and 590 MHz memory. The core of the X850 XT was clocked at 520 MHz, with memory checking in at 540 MHz. The X850 Pro is running at the same clock speed as the X850 XT, but integrates only twelve pixel pipes.

The new chips are pitched at customers looking to upgrade the graphics in older PCs, which don't come with PCI-E ports. While the X800 XL uses ATI's latest PCI-E-to-AGP bridge chip, aka 'Rialto', the X850 is an AGP-native part.

The producer is planning three different versions of the AGP X850 cards. There should be a X850 XT Platinum edition rocking at 540MHz core and 590MHz memory, X850 XT and X850PRO.

All clocks remain the same as with PCIe versions of the cards. Radeon 850 AGP series are expected sometimes in the first quarter already. These graphic cards are expected to be showcased first at the CeBIT.

ATI also launched the X800XL AGP card, clocked at a 400MHz core. This card has 16 pipelines and will compete with 6800 GT AGP cards from NVIDIA.

The second card of similar core is the X800 Vanilla AGP, clocked at a 392MHz. Both cards have up to 256MB or memory.