14 DAY TRIAL // Advanced Micro Devices is now preparing to launch another generation of graphics processing units and those GPUs are codenamed RV670 and they will be commercially available under the ''Radeon HD 2950 Pro'' name. This new generation of graphics processing units will be officially launched on the 19th of November and it is said that the manufacturing company, AMD, already started sending verification test (DVT) sample boards to the most important graphics cards producers and it will also start the mass production of the RV670 chips with a first 1.5 million batch during the first week of November.
The internal hardware makeup of the RV670 graphics processing units can be seen as a continuation of the RV600 series and it will bring a number of improvements and performance boosting technologies, while offering native compliance for the specifications of the DirectX 10.1 API, PCI Express 2.0, UVD decoding and multi-graphics setups with CrossFire technology. As the RV670 is a close iteration of the RV600 line of products, it will also come equipped with integrated high definition media interface, HDCP as well as 320 stream processing units.
The RV670 will hit the market under two kinds of distinct versions, the Radeon HD 2950 Pro Gladiator and the Radeon HD 2950 Revival that will come with different graphics processing core clock speeds, as well as distinct amounts of dedicated video memory and operating frequencies. The Radeon HD 2950 Pro Gladiator will come as the high end version, with 512MB of GDDR4 memory that will operate at 2.4GHz, while the core processing unit will be clocked at 825MHz.
The lower end variant of the Radeon HD 2950 Pro, the Revival, will come with either 256MB or 512MB of GDDR3 dedicated video memory and it will also have a core operating at 750MHz, while its memory will be clocked at 1.8GHz.
As the Radeon HD 2950 Pro graphics processing unit is very similar with the 2900 XT GPU while being clocked at a higher operating frequency and as it uses a faster dedicated video memory, users may find the new generation of products from Advanced Micro Devices much more interesting than the current line of offerings. As the producer stated sometime ago that it will keep the price tag at a low and affordable level for the two Radeon HD 2950 Pro graphics processing units, its main competitor, Nvidia, may find itself in a rather unpleasant situation.