AMD-ATI Ships Radeon 2900 XT With 1GB Memory

MojoKid writes "Prior to AMD-ATI's Radeon HD 2000 series introduction, rumors circulated regarding an ultra-high clocked ATI R600-based card, that featured a large 1GB frame buffer. Some even went so far as to say the GPU would be clocked near 1GHz. When the R600 arrived in the form of the Radeon HD 2900 XT, it was outfitted with 'only' 512MB of frame buffer memory and its GPU and memory clock speeds didn't come close to the numbers in those early rumors. Some of AMD's partners, however, have since decided to introduce R600-based products that do feature 1GB frame buffers, like the Diamond Viper HD 2900 XT 1GB in both single-card and CrossFire configurations. At 2GHz DDR, the memory on the card is also clocked higher than AMD's reference designs but the GPU remains clocked at 742MHz"

Comments

Considering 32-bit OSes are still mainstream..

[Chas]

These cards are ridiculous. ESPECIALLY in Crossfire installs.

Wow! Now that 4GB of main system memory I installed has been pared back down to a more manageable 2GB!

WHEE!

Until 64-bit becomes more mainstream, cards like this will only become more and more detrimental to the systems they're installed in.

Useless!

[ynososiduts]

Unless you are running quad 32" screens at some insane resolution, there is no need for 1 GB of frame buffer RAM. I think this is more for the "OMG MI VIF CARD HAZ 1 GIGGBYTES OF MEMORYIES!11!" type.