ATI's 512MB gaming card.. er, demo thingy
As promised, ATI was showing a 512MB version of the Radeon X850 XT this weekend. However, ATI was not showing off a new product. That's despite signs like this one on display in ATI's booth:

Looks like a product introduction sign to me. Check out those numbers, too. At 1600x1200 with 6X antialiasing, the 512MB card can be substantially faster than a 256MB card. However, ATI made it very clear that the 512MB cards on display were only part of a "technology demonstration."

The point of the demo, it seems, was to show that ATI is capable of creating a workable 512MB card. As the nice fellow from ATI explained it to me, designing a 512MB card is not trivial. Using higher density GDDR3 chips is too expensive right now, and dual-rank memory designs that use twice the number of chips can cause additional latency, harming performance. ATI found a way to create a dual-rank design without that latency penalty.

"How did they do that?" I asked. But he couldn't comment, because this was just a technology preview.

I did get some pictures of the card, though.

Unfortunately, the memory chips were largely hidden under the cooler.

ATI even commissioned a company named All American Computers to build it a showcase system for the Radeon X850 XT 512MB, which ATI gave away to a lucky gamer at the LAN party.

Wouldn't mind winning this

This box's vital specs include a Radeon Xpress 200 motherboard, an Athlon 64 FX-55 processor, a pair of Raptors in RAID 0, and a gig of Corsair 3200XL RAM.

All in all, it was a very nice technology preview. In fact, maybe a little too nice. It had the feel of an abortive product launch, as if ATI had made arrangements to launch a 512MB card here and later decided against it. But I could be wrong.

ATI did say that it's seeding top-tier developers with the same 512MB cards that were on display this weekend, and that this memory design will be implemented in its next-generation technology "in the very near future." The fact that they didn't launch a 512MB version of the X850 XT could be an indication that the next generation is getting very close indeed.