Press Release
- 2002
ATI's new FireGL X1 primed to power DCC and CAD workstations into new era of content creation
World's most advanced workstation graphics board with OpenGL®, DirectX® 9 and Linux in one graphics solution
Tuesday, July 23, 2002
MARKHAM, Ontario - ATI Technologies Inc. (TSX:ATY, NASDAQ:ATYT)
today introduced the FireGL X1 workstation graphics
board, based on the recently announced Radeon™ 9700 Visual
Processing Unit (GPU). ATI's FireGL X1, scheduled to be available
in October 2002, is the first in the world to deliver a fully
programmable floating point architecture in OpenGL® 2.0
and Microsoft® DirectX® 9, with double the performance
of any product currently on the market.
The FireGL X1 is also the first in the industry to offer
eight parallel rendering pipelines - providing twice the rendering
power of any competing product - giving digital content creators
the ability to preview finished scenes in real time, saving
days of production time. In addition, the FireGL X1 will
offload complex data calculations from the CPU, therefore
freeing up horsepower to accelerate the production pipeline.
"The FireGL X1 represents a significant breakthrough
in the workstation market," said Rick Bergman, Senior
Vice President, Marketing and General Manager, Desktop, ATI
Technologies Inc. "Its revolutionary architecture and
raw power will be the only choice for artists, developers
and engineers who want to create and refine digital content
at unprecedented levels of versatility and speed."
ATI's FireGL X1 128-bit full floating point pipeline architecture
now makes it possible to compile higher level shaders from
leading digital content creation (DCC) software such as
Aliaswavefront's Maya®, Discreet's 3ds max™, Side
Effects Software's Houdini™ and Softimage's XSI™
onto its graphics accelerator.
Feature set
- The fully programmable floating point architecture feature
set of the FireGL X1 includes:
- Ability to generate real time photo-realistic renderings;
- Unlimited color range beyond 16.7 million colors;
- True error-free and "loss less" multipass; and
- Fully programmable architecture.
Revolutionary new architecture coupled with extreme performance
The groundbreaking architecture of the FIRGE GL X1 is complemented
by 256MB DDR memory and a 256-bit memory interface that removes
hardware performance bottleneck and provides digital content
creators and CAD engineers with faster 3D graphics. The FireGL X1 also supports AGP 8X, providing a two-way high-speed
interface between the graphics subsystem and the workstation
at a speed of 2.0 GB per second.
Highest level of photo-realism
With SmartShader™ 2.0 and fully programmable floating
point precision, the FireGL X1 is the first workstation graphics
architecture to fully support Microsoft DirectX 9 and OpenGL
2.0 in one single solution. The implementation supports up
to 16 textures per rendering pass with Pixel Shaders 2.0 and
vertex programs of up to 1,024 instructions with flow control.
This architecture enables digital content creators to create
complex visual effects and run leading DCC and CAD software
programs in real time without losing image quality.
The FireGL X1 also features dual integrated display controllers
with dual monitor support, and quad buffered stereo graphics
support that enables stereographic display.
Copyright 2002 ATI Technologies Inc. All rights reserved.
ATI and ATI product and product feature names are trademarks
and/or registered trademarks of ATI Technologies Inc. All
other company and product names are trademarks and/or registered
trademarks of their respective owners. Features, pricing,
availability and specifications are subject to change without
notice.
About ATI Technologies
ATI Technologies Inc. is a world leader in the design and
manufacture of innovative 3D graphics and digital media silicon
solutions. An industry pioneer since 1985, ATI delivers leading-edge
performance solutions for the full range of PC and Mac desktop
and notebook platforms, workstation, set-top box, game console
and handheld markets. With 2001 revenues in excess of US $1
billion, ATI has more than 1,900 employees in the Americas,
Europe and Asia. ATI common shares trade on NASDAQ (ATYT)
and the Toronto Stock Exchange (ATY).
Contact Information
For media or industry analyst support, visit our Web site
at http://www.ati.com .
Other ATI Contacts:
Tenille Cuthbertson, Counsellor, BenchMark Porter Novelli,
at (416) 422-7163 or tcuthbertson@bmporternovelli.com
For Information:
Patricia Mikula, Public Relations Manager, Desktop and Workstation
products, at (905) 882-2600, Ext. 8809 or pmikula@ati.com
For investor relations support, please contact:
Janet Craig, Director, Investor Relations, ATI Technologies
Inc., at (905) 882-2600, Ext. 2631 or jcraig@ati.com
