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ATI Radeon is a brand of graphics processing unit
Graphics processing unit

A graphics processing unit or GPU is a dedicated graphics rendering device for a personal computer, workstation, or game console. Modern GPUs are very efficient at manipulating and displaying computer graphics, and their highly parallel structure makes them more effective than general-purpose Central processing unit for a range of com...
s (GPU) that since 2000 has been manufactured by ATI Technologies
ATI Technologies

ATI Technologies Inc. was a major designer and supplier of graphics processing units and motherboard chipsets. In 2006, the company was acquired by Advanced Micro Devices and was renamed the AMD Graphics Product Group, although the ATI brand was retained for graphics cards....
 and subsequently AMD and is the successor to their Rage
ATI Rage

The ATI Technologies RAGE is a series of Graphics processing units offering Graphical user interface 2D computer graphics, video acceleration, and 3D acceleration....
 line. There are four different groups, which can be differentiated by the DirectX
DirectX

Microsoft DirectX is a collection of application programming interfaces for handling tasks related to multimedia, especially game programming and video, on Microsoft platforms....
 generation they support. More specific distinctions can also be followed, such as the HyperZ
HyperZ

HyperZ is the name of a set of computer graphics processing techniques used by ATI Technologies in their Radeon video cards.On the Radeon R100-based cores, Radeon DDR through 7500, where HyperZ debuted, ATI claimed a 20% improvement in overall rendering efficiency....
 version, the number of pixel pipelines, and of course, the memory
Computer storage

Computer data storage, often called storage or memory, refers to computer components, devices, and recording medium that retain digital data used for computing for some interval of time....
 and processor
Central processing unit

A central processing unit is an electronic circuit that can execute computer programs. This broad definition can easily be applied to many early computers that existed long before the term "CPU" ever came into widespread usage....
 clock speeds.

le class="wikitable" style="margin: 1em auto 1em auto">
Series Graphics API
Application programming interface

An application programming interface is a set of subroutine, data structures, class and/or Protocol provided by library and/or operating system Service s in order to support the building of applications....
s support		 Notes
DirectX OpenGL
R100
Radeon R100

The Radeon R100 is the first generation of Radeon graphics chips from ATI Technologies. The line features 3D computer graphics based upon Direct3D 7.0 and OpenGL, a major improvement in features and performance compared to the preceding ATI Rage design....
 DirectX 7.0 OpenGL
OpenGL

OpenGL is a standard specification defining a cross-language cross-platform Application programming interface for writing applications that produce 2D computer graphics and 3D computer graphics....
 1.3		 ATI's first graphics processor to be fully DirectX
DirectX

Microsoft DirectX is a collection of application programming interfaces for handling tasks related to multimedia, especially game programming and video, on Microsoft platforms....
 7 compliant.






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Encyclopedia


ATI Radeon is a brand of graphics processing unit
Graphics processing unit

A graphics processing unit or GPU is a dedicated graphics rendering device for a personal computer, workstation, or game console. Modern GPUs are very efficient at manipulating and displaying computer graphics, and their highly parallel structure makes them more effective than general-purpose Central processing unit for a range of com...
s (GPU) that since 2000 has been manufactured by ATI Technologies
ATI Technologies

ATI Technologies Inc. was a major designer and supplier of graphics processing units and motherboard chipsets. In 2006, the company was acquired by Advanced Micro Devices and was renamed the AMD Graphics Product Group, although the ATI brand was retained for graphics cards....
 and subsequently AMD and is the successor to their Rage
ATI Rage

The ATI Technologies RAGE is a series of Graphics processing units offering Graphical user interface 2D computer graphics, video acceleration, and 3D acceleration....
 line. There are four different groups, which can be differentiated by the DirectX
DirectX

Microsoft DirectX is a collection of application programming interfaces for handling tasks related to multimedia, especially game programming and video, on Microsoft platforms....
 generation they support. More specific distinctions can also be followed, such as the HyperZ
HyperZ

HyperZ is the name of a set of computer graphics processing techniques used by ATI Technologies in their Radeon video cards.On the Radeon R100-based cores, Radeon DDR through 7500, where HyperZ debuted, ATI claimed a 20% improvement in overall rendering efficiency....
 version, the number of pixel pipelines, and of course, the memory
Computer storage

Computer data storage, often called storage or memory, refers to computer components, devices, and recording medium that retain digital data used for computing for some interval of time....
 and processor
Central processing unit

A central processing unit is an electronic circuit that can execute computer programs. This broad definition can easily be applied to many early computers that existed long before the term "CPU" ever came into widespread usage....
 clock speeds.

ATI Radeon Processor Generations

Series Graphics API
Application programming interface

An application programming interface is a set of subroutine, data structures, class and/or Protocol provided by library and/or operating system Service s in order to support the building of applications....
s support		 Notes
DirectX OpenGL
R100
Radeon R100

The Radeon R100 is the first generation of Radeon graphics chips from ATI Technologies. The line features 3D computer graphics based upon Direct3D 7.0 and OpenGL, a major improvement in features and performance compared to the preceding ATI Rage design....
 DirectX 7.0 OpenGL
OpenGL

OpenGL is a standard specification defining a cross-language cross-platform Application programming interface for writing applications that produce 2D computer graphics and 3D computer graphics....
 1.3		 ATI's first graphics processor to be fully DirectX
DirectX

Microsoft DirectX is a collection of application programming interfaces for handling tasks related to multimedia, especially game programming and video, on Microsoft platforms....
 7 compliant. It was first introduced in 2000. R100 brought with it large gains in bandwidth and fill-rate efficiency through the new HyperZ
HyperZ

HyperZ is the name of a set of computer graphics processing techniques used by ATI Technologies in their Radeon video cards.On the Radeon R100-based cores, Radeon DDR through 7500, where HyperZ debuted, ATI claimed a 20% improvement in overall rendering efficiency....
 technology. Initial models included Radeon SDR, DDR and 7000/VE. The final release was the Radeon 7500.
R200
Radeon R200

The Radeon R200 is the second generation of Radeon graphics chips from ATI Technologies. It was the core that marked out ATI from other failing graphics chip companies of the period and put it on a competitive level with Nvidia....
 DirectX 8.1 OpenGL 1.4 ATI's second generation Radeon. This design included ATI's first programmable shader architecture and introduced the more advanced pixel shader 1.4. This line includes Radeon 8500 - 9200, 9250.
R300
Radeon R300

The Radeon R300 is the third generation of Radeon graphics chips from ATI Technologies. The line features 3D computer graphics based upon Direct3D 9.0 and OpenGL 2.0, a major improvement in features and performance compared to the preceding Radeon R200 design....
 DirectX 9.0 OpenGL 2.0 ATI's DirectX 9.0 technology, released in 2002, incorporated pixel shader. Included in this generation are Radeon 9500 - 9800, X300 - X600, X1050.
R420
Radeon R420

The Radeon R420 core from ATI Technologies was the company's basis for its 3rd-generation DirectX 9.0/OpenGL 2.0-capable Graphics processing unit....
 DirectX 9.0b While heavily based upon the previous generation, this line included extensions to the Shader Model 2 feature-set. Shader Model 2b, the specification ATI and Microsoft defined with this generation, offered somewhat more shader program flexibility. This generation's technology is used in Radeon X700 - X850.
R520
Radeon R520

ATI's "R520" core is the foundation for a line of DirectX 9.0c and OpenGL 2.0 3D accelerator X1000 video cards. It is ATI's first major architectural overhaul since the "Radeon R300" core and is highly optimized for Shader Model 3.0....
 DirectX 9.0c ATI's DirectX 9.0c series of graphics cards, with complete Shader Model 3.0
Shader

A shader in the field of computer graphics is a set of software instructions, which is used primarily to calculate Rendering effects on graphics hardware with a high degree of flexibility....
 support. Launched in October 2005, this series brought a number of enhancements including the floating point render target technology necessary for HDR rendering
High dynamic range rendering

High dynamic range rendering , also known as high dynamic range lighting, is the Rendering of computer graphics scenes by using lighting calculations done in a larger dynamic range....
 with anti-aliasing
Anti-aliasing

In digital signal processing, anti-aliasing is the technique of minimizing the distortion artifacts known as aliasing when representing a high-resolution signal at a lower resolution....
. Cards released include X1300 - X1950.
R600
Radeon R600

The graphics processing unit codenamed R600 is the foundation of the Radeon HD 2000/3000 series and the FireGL 2007 series video cards developed by ATI Technologies....
 DirectX 10.0/
DirectX 10.1 (RV670)		 OpenGL 3.0 ATI's first series of ATI Radeon GPUs supporting the Direct3D 10.0
Direct3D

Direct3D is part of Microsoft's DirectX application programming interface. Direct3D is only available for Microsoft's various Microsoft Windows operating systems and is the base for the graphics API on the Xbox and Xbox 360 console systems....
 specification and the company's second graphics solution to employ unified shader
Unified shader model

Unified Shader Model term is used to describe two similar but separate concepts: Unified Shading Architecture and Unified Shader Model....
 technology. Releases of this platform include the HD 2400, HD 2600 and HD 2900. There are also products supporting DirectX 10.1, known as the HD 3000 series, with a die shrink.
R700
Radeon R700

The Radeon R700 is the engineering codename for a Graphics Processing Unit series released by ATI Technologies, sold under the ATI Technologies brand....
 DirectX 10.1 ATI's new series, based on the R600 architecture. Mostly a bolstered card with many more stream processors, with improvements to power consumption and GDDR5 support for the high-end RV770 chip. It arrived in late June 2008. The HD 4850 and HD 4870 have 800 stream processors and GDDR3 and GDDR5 memory respectively.


Radeon Card Brands

AMD does not actually sell Radeon cards at the retail level. Instead, it sells the hardware to 3rd party manufacturers who in turn sell their cards to the public. Examples of Radeon brands include Diamond Multimedia, Sapphire Technology, AsusTek, HIS - Hightech Information System, MSI - Micro-Star International, PowerColor, Gigabyte, VisionTek, & recently, XFX.

Product naming scheme

Since ATI's first DirectX 9-class GPU, the company has followed a naming scheme that relates each product to a market segment.

  • 1 Stream Processors only applicable to Radeon HD 2000 series video cards.
Product Category Card Name
(* denotes wildcard)		 Usual Suffixes Price range (USD
United States dollar

The United States dollar is the unit of currency of the United States and was defined by the Coinage Act of 1792 to be between 371 and 416 grains of silver ....
)		 Shader amount (VS
Vertex shader

Vertex shader is a shader program, normally executed on the Graphics processing unit....
/PS
Pixel shader

A pixel shader is a shader program, often executed on a graphics processing unit. It adds 3D shading and lighting effects to pixels in an image, for example those in video games....
/SPU
Stream processing

Stream processing is a computer programming paradigm, related to SIMD, that allows some applications to more easily exploit a limited form of parallel computing....
)1		 Memory Outputs Example products
Type Width
(bit
Bit

A bit is a binary numeral system numerical digit, taking a value of either 0 or 1. Binary digits are a basic unit of information Computer data storage and transmission in digital computing and digital information theory....
)		 Size (MiB)
Enthusiast/high-end **9**
**8**		 XTX, XT, XT PE, XL, Pro, GTO, GT >$150 75-100%
200% (X2, dual-GPU)		 GDDR3
GDDR3

Graphics Double Data Rate 3 is a graphics card-specific memory technology, designed by ATI Technologies with the collaboration of JEDEC.It has much the same technological base as DDR2 SDRAM, but the power and heat dispersal requirements have been reduced somewhat, allowing for higher performance memory modules, and simplified cooling syste...
,
GDDR4
GDDR4

GDDR4 SDRAM is a type of graphics card Random access memory specified by the JEDEC Semiconductor Memory Standard. It is a rival medium to Rambus XDR DRAM....
,
GDDR5
GDDR5

GDDR5 is a type of graphics card Random access memory the standards of which were set out in the GDDR5 specification by JEDEC. GDDR5 is the successor to GDDR4 and unlike its predecessors has two parallel DQ links which provide doubled I/O throughput when compared to GDDR4....
 256-bit/
512-bit		 256/512/1024 Dual DVI with
HDMI (HD 2000
Radeon R600

The graphics processing unit codenamed R600 is the foundation of the Radeon HD 2000/3000 series and the FireGL 2007 series video cards developed by ATI Technologies....
 dongle)		 X800
Radeon R420

The Radeon R420 core from ATI Technologies was the company's basis for its 3rd-generation DirectX 9.0/OpenGL 2.0-capable Graphics processing unit....
, X1950
Radeon R520

ATI's "R520" core is the foundation for a line of DirectX 9.0c and OpenGL 2.0 3D accelerator X1000 video cards. It is ATI's first major architectural overhaul since the "Radeon R300" core and is highly optimized for Shader Model 3.0....
, HD 2900
Radeon R600

The graphics processing unit codenamed R600 is the foundation of the Radeon HD 2000/3000 series and the FireGL 2007 series video cards developed by ATI Technologies....
, HD 4870
Radeon R700

The Radeon R700 is the engineering codename for a Graphics Processing Unit series released by ATI Technologies, sold under the ATI Technologies brand....
Mainstream **7**
**6**
**5**		 XT, XL, Pro, SE, GTO, GT $100-$150 37.5-75% DDR2
DDR2

DDR2 can refer to:* DDR2 SDRAM* discoidin domain receptor tyrosine kinase 2...
,
GDDR3
GDDR3

Graphics Double Data Rate 3 is a graphics card-specific memory technology, designed by ATI Technologies with the collaboration of JEDEC.It has much the same technological base as DDR2 SDRAM, but the power and heat dispersal requirements have been reduced somewhat, allowing for higher performance memory modules, and simplified cooling syste...
,
GDDR4
GDDR4

GDDR4 SDRAM is a type of graphics card Random access memory specified by the JEDEC Semiconductor Memory Standard. It is a rival medium to Rambus XDR DRAM....
 128-bit 128/256/512 D-Sub
D-subminiature

The D-subminiature or D-sub is a common type of electrical connector used particularly in computers. Calling them "subminiature" was appropriate when they were first introduced, but today they are among the largest common connectors used in computers....
, DVI/
Dual DVI with
HDMI (HD 2000
Radeon R600

The graphics processing unit codenamed R600 is the foundation of the Radeon HD 2000/3000 series and the FireGL 2007 series video cards developed by ATI Technologies....
 dongle)		 X700
Radeon R420

The Radeon R420 core from ATI Technologies was the company's basis for its 3rd-generation DirectX 9.0/OpenGL 2.0-capable Graphics processing unit....
, X1600
Radeon R520

ATI's "R520" core is the foundation for a line of DirectX 9.0c and OpenGL 2.0 3D accelerator X1000 video cards. It is ATI's first major architectural overhaul since the "Radeon R300" core and is highly optimized for Shader Model 3.0....
, HD 2600
Radeon R600

The graphics processing unit codenamed R600 is the foundation of the Radeon HD 2000/3000 series and the FireGL 2007 series video cards developed by ATI Technologies....
Budget/Value **4**
**3**
**2**
**1**
**0**
7x00, 9000, 9200, 9250		 SE, HM
HyperMemory

HyperMemory is ATI Technologies' method of using the motherboard's main system random access memory as part of or all of the video card's framebuffer memory on their line of Radeon video cards and motherboard chipsets....
 <$99 25-50% DDR2
DDR2

DDR2 can refer to:* DDR2 SDRAM* discoidin domain receptor tyrosine kinase 2...
,
GDDR3
GDDR3

Graphics Double Data Rate 3 is a graphics card-specific memory technology, designed by ATI Technologies with the collaboration of JEDEC.It has much the same technological base as DDR2 SDRAM, but the power and heat dispersal requirements have been reduced somewhat, allowing for higher performance memory modules, and simplified cooling syste...
 64-bit 64/128
(HM
HyperMemory

HyperMemory is ATI Technologies' method of using the motherboard's main system random access memory as part of or all of the video card's framebuffer memory on their line of Radeon video cards and motherboard chipsets....
: 768/1024)		 D-Sub
D-subminiature

The D-subminiature or D-sub is a common type of electrical connector used particularly in computers. Calling them "subminiature" was appropriate when they were first introduced, but today they are among the largest common connectors used in computers....
, DVI with
HDMI (HD 2000
Radeon R600

The graphics processing unit codenamed R600 is the foundation of the Radeon HD 2000/3000 series and the FireGL 2007 series video cards developed by ATI Technologies....
 Dongle)		 X300
Radeon R300

The Radeon R300 is the third generation of Radeon graphics chips from ATI Technologies. The line features 3D computer graphics based upon Direct3D 9.0 and OpenGL 2.0, a major improvement in features and performance compared to the preceding Radeon R200 design....
, X1050
Radeon R300

The Radeon R300 is the third generation of Radeon graphics chips from ATI Technologies. The line features 3D computer graphics based upon Direct3D 9.0 and OpenGL 2.0, a major improvement in features and performance compared to the preceding Radeon R200 design....
,
X1400
Radeon R520

ATI's "R520" core is the foundation for a line of DirectX 9.0c and OpenGL 2.0 3D accelerator X1000 video cards. It is ATI's first major architectural overhaul since the "Radeon R300" core and is highly optimized for Shader Model 3.0....
, HD 2400
Radeon R600

The graphics processing unit codenamed R600 is the foundation of the Radeon HD 2000/3000 series and the FireGL 2007 series video cards developed by ATI Technologies....


Note: Suffix indicate different layers of performance. See ATI Video Card Suffixes
ATI Video Card Suffixes

ATI Technologies video cards can have one of multiple suffixes attached to their name indicating relative level of performance, the use of suffixes was abandoned with the release of Radeon R600#New model numbering scheme products, the last two digits of the model number was then used to indicate relative performance of the products, except for the...
.

Since the release of the Radeon HD 3000 series
Radeon R600

The graphics processing unit codenamed R600 is the foundation of the Radeon HD 2000/3000 series and the FireGL 2007 series video cards developed by ATI Technologies....
 products, previous PRO, XT, GT, and XTX suffixes
ATI Video Card Suffixes

ATI Technologies video cards can have one of multiple suffixes attached to their name indicating relative level of performance, the use of suffixes was abandoned with the release of Radeon R600#New model numbering scheme products, the last two digits of the model number was then used to indicate relative performance of the products, except for the...
 were eliminated, products will be differentiated by changing the last two digits of the product model number (for instance, HD 3850 and HD 3870, giving the impression that the HD 3870 model having higher performance than HD 3850). Similar changes to the IGP naming were spotted as well, for the previously launched AMD M690T chipset
AMD 690 chipset series

The AMD 690 chipset series is a chipset family developed and manufactured by AMD subsidiary ATI Technologies for the AMD platform. It's focused on both desktop and mobile computing markets....
 with side-port memory, the IGP is named "Radeon X1270", while for the AMD 690G chipset
AMD 690 chipset series

The AMD 690 chipset series is a chipset family developed and manufactured by AMD subsidiary ATI Technologies for the AMD platform. It's focused on both desktop and mobile computing markets....
, the IGP is named "Radeon X1250", as for AMD 690V chipset
AMD 690 chipset series

The AMD 690 chipset series is a chipset family developed and manufactured by AMD subsidiary ATI Technologies for the AMD platform. It's focused on both desktop and mobile computing markets....
, the IGP is clocked lower and having fewer functions and thus named "Radeon X1200". The new numbering scheme of video products are shown below:

Product Category Model number
range (steps of 10)1		 Price range
(USD
United States dollar

The United States dollar is the unit of currency of the United States and was defined by the Coinage Act of 1792 to be between 371 and 416 grains of silver ....
)		 Shader amount
(VS
Vertex shader

Vertex shader is a shader program, normally executed on the Graphics processing unit....
/PS
Pixel shader

A pixel shader is a shader program, often executed on a graphics processing unit. It adds 3D shading and lighting effects to pixels in an image, for example those in video games....
/SPU
Stream processing

Stream processing is a computer programming paradigm, related to SIMD, that allows some applications to more easily exploit a limited form of parallel computing....
)2		 Memory Outputs Product(s)
Type Width
(bit
Bit

A bit is a binary numeral system numerical digit, taking a value of either 0 or 1. Binary digits are a basic unit of information Computer data storage and transmission in digital computing and digital information theory....
)		 Size (MiB)
Enthusiast
/high-end		 800-990 >$150 75-100% GDDR3
GDDR3

Graphics Double Data Rate 3 is a graphics card-specific memory technology, designed by ATI Technologies with the collaboration of JEDEC.It has much the same technological base as DDR2 SDRAM, but the power and heat dispersal requirements have been reduced somewhat, allowing for higher performance memory modules, and simplified cooling syste...
,
GDDR4
GDDR4

GDDR4 SDRAM is a type of graphics card Random access memory specified by the JEDEC Semiconductor Memory Standard. It is a rival medium to Rambus XDR DRAM....
,
GDDR5
GDDR5

GDDR5 is a type of graphics card Random access memory the standards of which were set out in the GDDR5 specification by JEDEC. GDDR5 is the successor to GDDR4 and unlike its predecessors has two parallel DQ links which provide doubled I/O throughput when compared to GDDR4....
 256-bit 256/512/1024 2 DVI,
HDMI, DP
DisplayPort

DisplayPort is a digital display interface standard put forth by the VESA . It defines a new license-free, royalty-free, digital audio/video interconnect, intended to be used primarily between a computer and its computer display, or a computer and a home-theater system....
 (Dongle)		 HD 3850/3870
Radeon R600

The graphics processing unit codenamed R600 is the foundation of the Radeon HD 2000/3000 series and the FireGL 2007 series video cards developed by ATI Technologies....

HD 4850/4870
Radeon R700

The Radeon R700 is the engineering codename for a Graphics Processing Unit series released by ATI Technologies, sold under the ATI Technologies brand....
/ HD 4830
Mainstream 600-790 $100-$150 37.5-75% DDR2
DDR2

DDR2 can refer to:* DDR2 SDRAM* discoidin domain receptor tyrosine kinase 2...
,
GDDR3
GDDR3

Graphics Double Data Rate 3 is a graphics card-specific memory technology, designed by ATI Technologies with the collaboration of JEDEC.It has much the same technological base as DDR2 SDRAM, but the power and heat dispersal requirements have been reduced somewhat, allowing for higher performance memory modules, and simplified cooling syste...
,
GDDR4
GDDR4

GDDR4 SDRAM is a type of graphics card Random access memory specified by the JEDEC Semiconductor Memory Standard. It is a rival medium to Rambus XDR DRAM....
 128-bit 128/256/512/1024 D-Sub
D-subminiature

The D-subminiature or D-sub is a common type of electrical connector used particularly in computers. Calling them "subminiature" was appropriate when they were first introduced, but today they are among the largest common connectors used in computers....
, DVI
 HD 3650
Radeon R600

The graphics processing unit codenamed R600 is the foundation of the Radeon HD 2000/3000 series and the FireGL 2007 series video cards developed by ATI Technologies....
/ HD 4650/ HD 4670
DVI, 2 DP
DisplayPort

DisplayPort is a digital display interface standard put forth by the VESA . It defines a new license-free, royalty-free, digital audio/video interconnect, intended to be used primarily between a computer and its computer display, or a computer and a home-theater system....
,
HDMI (Dongle)
Budget/Value 350-590 <$99 25-50% DDR2
DDR2

DDR2 can refer to:* DDR2 SDRAM* discoidin domain receptor tyrosine kinase 2...
,
GDDR3
GDDR3

Graphics Double Data Rate 3 is a graphics card-specific memory technology, designed by ATI Technologies with the collaboration of JEDEC.It has much the same technological base as DDR2 SDRAM, but the power and heat dispersal requirements have been reduced somewhat, allowing for higher performance memory modules, and simplified cooling syste...
 64-bit 64/128
(HM
HyperMemory

HyperMemory is ATI Technologies' method of using the motherboard's main system random access memory as part of or all of the video card's framebuffer memory on their line of Radeon video cards and motherboard chipsets....
: 768/1024)		 D-Sub
D-subminiature

The D-subminiature or D-sub is a common type of electrical connector used particularly in computers. Calling them "subminiature" was appropriate when they were first introduced, but today they are among the largest common connectors used in computers....
, DVI,
HDMI, DP
DisplayPort

DisplayPort is a digital display interface standard put forth by the VESA . It defines a new license-free, royalty-free, digital audio/video interconnect, intended to be used primarily between a computer and its computer display, or a computer and a home-theater system....
 (Dongle)		 HD 3450/3470
Radeon R600

The graphics processing unit codenamed R600 is the foundation of the Radeon HD 2000/3000 series and the FireGL 2007 series video cards developed by ATI Technologies....
IGP 000-300 N/A 25-50% UMA,
side-port memory
(GDDR2/GDDR3)		 UMA + 16-bit (side-port) 64 + UMA
(OS dependent)		 D-Sub
D-subminiature

The D-subminiature or D-sub is a common type of electrical connector used particularly in computers. Calling them "subminiature" was appropriate when they were first introduced, but today they are among the largest common connectors used in computers....
, DVI,
HDMI, DP
DisplayPort

DisplayPort is a digital display interface standard put forth by the VESA . It defines a new license-free, royalty-free, digital audio/video interconnect, intended to be used primarily between a computer and its computer display, or a computer and a home-theater system....

Component (YCbCr)
Component video

Component video is a video signal that has been split into two or more components. In popular use, it refers to a type of Analog signal video information that is transmitted or stored as three separate signals....
 X1270
AMD 690 chipset series

The AMD 690 chipset series is a chipset family developed and manufactured by AMD subsidiary ATI Technologies for the AMD platform. It's focused on both desktop and mobile computing markets....
/X1250
AMD 690 chipset series

The AMD 690 chipset series is a chipset family developed and manufactured by AMD subsidiary ATI Technologies for the AMD platform. It's focused on both desktop and mobile computing markets....
/X1200
AMD 690 chipset series

The AMD 690 chipset series is a chipset family developed and manufactured by AMD subsidiary ATI Technologies for the AMD platform. It's focused on both desktop and mobile computing markets....
 
HD 3200/HD 3100
AMD 700 chipset series

The AMD 700 chipset series is a set of current and upcoming chipsets designed by ATI Technologies for Advanced Micro Devices Phenom processors to be sold under the AMD brand....
/2100
AMD 700 chipset series

The AMD 700 chipset series is a set of current and upcoming chipsets designed by ATI Technologies for Advanced Micro Devices Phenom processors to be sold under the AMD brand....


  • 1 The last two digits denotes variant, similar to the previous suffixes
    ATI Video Card Suffixes

    ATI Technologies video cards can have one of multiple suffixes attached to their name indicating relative level of performance, the use of suffixes was abandoned with the release of Radeon R600#New model numbering scheme products, the last two digits of the model number was then used to indicate relative performance of the products, except for the...
    , which "70" is in essence the "XT" variant while "50" is actually the "Pro" variant.
  • 2 Stream Processors only applicable to Direct3D 10-class video components (Radeon HD 2000/3000 series).


Drivers


Windows

The ATI Radeon graphics driver package for Windows
Microsoft Windows

Microsoft Windows is a series of software operating systems and graphical user interfaces produced by Microsoft. Microsoft first introduced an operating environment named Windows in November 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces ....
 operating system is called ATI Catalyst.

The ATI Catalyst official drivers refuse to work with the mobile versions of Radeon series due to an agreement with OEM
Original Equipment Manufacturer

OEM stands for "Original Equipment Manufacturer".An original equipment manufacturer, or OEM is typically a company that uses a component made by a second company in its own product, or sells the product of the second company under its own brand....
 vendors. An alternative is an application called Mobility Modder, a third-party utility which modifies recent desktop Radeon drivers to work with Mobility Radeon graphics cards.

There are also unofficial modifications available such as Omega drivers
Omega drivers

The Omega Drivers are unofficial, third-party drivers for ATI and nVidia graphics cards, created by Angel Trinidad. They differ from the official drivers in that they offer more customization and extra features....
 or DNA drivers. These drivers typically consist of mixtures of various driver file versions with some registry
Windows registry

The Windows Registry is a directory which stores settings and options for Microsoft Windows operating systems. It contains information and settings for all the hardware, operating system software, most non-operating system software, and per-user settings....
 variables altered and are advertised as offering superior performance or image quality. They are, of course, unsupported, and as such, are not guaranteed to function correctly. Some of them also provide modified system files for hardware enthusiasts to run specific graphics cards outside of their specifications.

Windows XP Professional x64

ATI has yet to produce mobile 64 bit drivers for the Windows XP Professional x64 Edition operating system. This may be due to a number of factors. One factor is that most people use the 32-bit version of Windows XP
Windows XP

Windows XP is a line of operating systems produced by Microsoft for use on personal computers, including home and business desktops, laptop, and media centers....
, due not only to video card driver issues, but other driver compatibility issues as well. Nonetheless, it is possible to obtain a proper driver for this type of setup. In order to do so, one requires the use of an unsupported application like Modtool.

Macintosh

ATI used to only offer driver updates for their retail Mac video cards, but now also offer drivers for all ATI Mac
MAC

Mac or MAC may refer to:...
 products, including the GPUs in Apple's portable lines. Apple also includes ATI driver updates whenever they release a new OS update. ATI provides a preference panel for use in Mac OS X
Mac OS X

Mac OS X is a line of computer operating systems developed, marketed, and sold by Apple Inc., and since 2002 has been included with all new Macintosh computer systems....
 called ATI Displays which can be used both with retail and OEM versions of their cards. Though it gives more control over advanced features of the graphics chipset, ATI Displays has limited functionality compared to their Catalyst for Windows product.

Linux

Initially, ATI did not produce Radeon drivers for Linux
Linux

Linux is a generic term referring to Unix-like computer operating systems based on the Linux kernel. Their development is one of the most prominent examples of free and open source software collaboration; typically all the underlying source code can be used, freely modified, and redistributed by anyone under the terms of the GNU GPL license...
, instead giving hardware specifications and documentation to Direct Rendering Infrastructure
Direct Rendering Infrastructure

In computing, the Direct Rendering Infrastructure is an interface and a free software implementation used in the X Window System to securely allow user applications to access the video hardware without requiring data to be passed through the X server....
 (DRI) developers under various non-disclosure agreement
Non-disclosure agreement

A non-disclosure agreement , also known as a confidentiality agreement, confidential disclosure agreement , proprietary information agreement , or secrecy agreement, is a law contract between at least two party that outlines confidential materials or knowledge the parties wish to share with one another for certain pur...
s.

In mid 2004, however, ATI started to support Linux
Linux

Linux is a generic term referring to Unix-like computer operating systems based on the Linux kernel. Their development is one of the most prominent examples of free and open source software collaboration; typically all the underlying source code can be used, freely modified, and redistributed by anyone under the terms of the GNU GPL license...
 (XFree86
XFree86

XFree86 is an implementation of the X Window System. It was originally written for Unix-like operating systems on IBM PC compatibles and is now available for many other operating systems and platforms....
, X.Org
X.Org

X.Org refers to:* The X.Org Foundation, stewards of the X Window System.* The X.Org Server, the reference implementation of X developed by the Foundation....
), hiring a new Linux driver team to produce fglrx
Fglrx

fglrx is the name of the Linux display driver used for ATI Technologies Radeon and ATI FireGL family video adapters and stands for "FireGL and Radeon for X Window System"....
. Their new proprietary
Proprietary software

Proprietary software is a term coined by advocates of the free software movement to describe computer software which is the legal property of one party....
 Linux drivers, instead of being a port of the Windows Catalyst
ATI Catalyst

ATI Catalyst is a utility software driver package for several ATI products for several operating systems. The Catalyst software was instituted after the release of the Radeon 8500....
 drivers, were based on the Linux drivers for the FireGL (the FireGL drivers worked with Radeons before, but didn't officially support them), a card geared towards graphics producers, not gamers; though the display drivers part is now based on the same sources as the ones from Windows Catalyst since version 4.x in late 2004. The proprietary Linux drivers neither support R100 (Radeon 7000-7500) nor R200 (Radeon 8500-9200, 9250) chips.

The frequency of driver updates increased in late 2004, releasing Linux drivers every two months, half as often as their Windows counterparts. Then since late 2005 this has been increased to monthly releases, inline with the Windows Catalyst releases.

For information on alternative Open Source
Open source

Open source is an approach to design, development, and distribution offering practical accessibility to a product's source . Some consider open source as one of various possible design approaches, while others consider it a critical Strategy element of their business operations....
 drivers, see below.

FreeBSD


FreeBSD
FreeBSD

FreeBSD is a Unix-like free software operating system descended from AT&T Unix via the Berkeley Software Distribution branch through the 386BSD and Berkeley Software Distribution#4.4BSD and descendants operating systems....
 systems have the same open-source support for Radeon hardware as Linux, including 2D and 3D acceleration for Radeon R100, R200, and R300-series chipsets. The R300 support, as with Linux, remains experimental due to being reverse-engineered from ATI's proprietary drivers.

ATI does not support its proprietary fglrx driver on FreeBSD, it has been partly ported by a third party as of January 2007. This is in contrast to its main rival, NVIDIA, which has periodically released its proprietary driver for FreeBSD since November 2002 (though 64-bit BSD systems are still not supported as of 2009). In the meantime the release is similar to Linux.

MidnightBSD


MidnightBSD
MidnightBSD

MidnightBSD is a free Unix-like, desktop-oriented operating system based on FreeBSD 6.1. It borrows a lot from the NEXTSTEP graphical user interface....
 supports 2D and 3D acceleration for Radeon R100, R200, and R300 chipsets. This support is similar to FreeBSD and Linux.

AmigaOS


Since AmigaOS 4
AmigaOS 4

AmigaOS 4 is a line of Amiga operating systems which runs on PowerPC microprocessors. "The Final Update" was released in 24 December 2006 after five years of development by the Belgian company Hyperion Entertainment under license from Amiga, Inc....
 introduction AmigaOS
AmigaOS

AmigaOS is the default native operating system of the Amiga personal computer. It was developed first by Commodore International, and initially introduced in 1985 with the Amiga 1000....
 users officially gained support for R100/R200 Radeon cards with the R300 chips being planned, although this depends on the available hardware documentations from ATI or the open source drivers from the Linux community.

Hans de Ruiter is developing on R5xx and R6xx drivers from AMD documentation. At the present time (07/MAR/2009) there is a basic P96 2D driver, which works with the PCI Radeon X1300, X1550 and HD2400 that Hans is using for development and testing.

BeOS

Although ATI does not provide its own drivers for BeOS
BeOS

BeOS was an operating system for personal computers which began development by Be Inc. in 1991. It was first written to run on BeBox hardware. BeOS was optimized for digital media work and was written to take advantage of modern hardware facilities such as symmetric multiprocessing by utilizing modular I/O bandwidth, pervasive multithreading,...
, it provides hardware and technical documentation to the Haiku Project
Haiku (operating system)

Haiku, formerly known as OpenBeOS , is a free software and open source software project dedicated to the re-creation and continuation of BeOS on X86 architecture and PowerPC based computers....
 who provide drivers with full 2D and video in/out support. They are the sole graphics manufacturer in any way still supporting BeOS.

MorphOS

MorphOS
MorphOS

MorphOS is a computer operating system . It is a mixed proprietary software and open source OS produced for the Pegasos PowerPC -processor-based computer, most models of PPC-accelerator-equipped Amiga computers, and a series of Freescale development boards that use the Genesi Firmware, including the EFIKA and mobileGT....
 supports 2D and 3D acceleration for Radeon R100 and R200 chipsets.

FOSS drivers

On September 12, 2007, AMD released documentation for the RV630 (Radeon HD 2600 PRO and Radeon HD 2600 XT) and M56 (Radeon Mobility X1600) chips for open source driver development, for its strategic open source driver development initiative. This initial "documentation drop" released sufficient programming information for a skeleton display detection and modesetting driver to be released. This was version 1.0.0 of the "radeonhd" driver. Further documentation releases and a baseline open source drivers are likely to follow in the near future. The register reference guides for M76 (Mobility Radeon HD 2600/2700/3600/3800 series) and RS690 (AMD 690 chipset series) were also released on January 4, 2008, and is available from ATI website .

All specs are available without an NDA
Non-disclosure agreement

A non-disclosure agreement , also known as a confidentiality agreement, confidential disclosure agreement , proprietary information agreement , or secrecy agreement, is a law contract between at least two party that outlines confidential materials or knowledge the parties wish to share with one another for certain pur...
. AMD is collaborating with Novell
Novell

Novell Inc. is a global software corporation based in the United States specializing in enterprise operating systems such as SUSE Linux distributions and Novell NetWare; identity, security and systems management solutions; and collaboration solutions....
 to build a new, free driver called RadeonHD based on these specifications. At present it is reasonably stable, and supports DRI for r500 series cards. Its development can be tracked using the git
Git (software)

Git is a free software distributed revision control, or software source code management project with an emphasis on being fast. Git was initially created by Linus Torvalds for Linux kernel development....
 repository at the Freedesktop.org
Freedesktop.org

freedesktop.org is a project to work on interoperability and shared base technology for free software desktop environments for the X Window System on Linux and other Unix-like operating systems....
 website.

Also available is a driver known as "ati", "xf86-video-ati", "video-ati" and "radeon". The main difference between video-ati and radeonhd used to be that video-ati uses AtomBIOS and radeonhd does not. AtomBIOS is an abstraction layer filled in by AMD
Advanced Micro Devices

Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. is an United States multinational corporation semiconductor industry company based in Sunnyvale, California, that develops Central processing unit and related technologies for commercial and consumer markets....
 to quickly add a new type of card or card series. AtomBIOS speeds up development of video-ati, but some have argued that it makes the open-source driver more legacy and untouchable. In July 2008 development has started to enable radeonhd to use AtomBIOS too, which should tremendously decrease the timeframe in which initial support for new hardware is developed. This development was started in a branch named atombios_support, and as of September 2008 is not yet merged with the master branch.

See also

  • Comparison of ATI Graphics Processing Units
    Comparison of ATI Graphics Processing Units

    This page contains general information about ATI Technologies's Graphics processing units and video cards based on official ATI specifications in table form....
  • ATI Rage
    ATI Rage

    The ATI Technologies RAGE is a series of Graphics processing units offering Graphical user interface 2D computer graphics, video acceleration, and 3D acceleration....
     – previous series of ATI's video cards
  • Nvidia
    NVIDIA

    Nvidia is a multinational corporation specializing in the manufacture of graphics processing unit technologies for workstations, desktop computers, and mobile devices....
  • Video In Video Out (VIVO)
    Video In Video Out

    Video In Video Out, usually seen as the acronym VIVO , is a Computer port which enables some video cards to have bidirectional video transfer through a Mini-DIN connector, usually of the 9-pin variety, and a specialised splitter cable ....


External links