AnandTech has a new ATI Crossfire article, offering some benchmark numbers from a Gigabyte Crossfire motherboard / videocard setup. Pretty much all games tested show performance by an X850 XT Crossfire setup to be better than a single 7800 GTX card, but SLI GTX is king (it better be, seeing how its a $1000+ solution).

ATI's custom care page has been updated, now offering version 5.7 of the Catalyst drivers for Radeon videocards. Release notes can be found here; there are fixes for Flight Sim 2004, Trackmania Sunrise and Warcraft III and cards with 64MB and 128MB framebuffer configurations should see a performance increase in 3DMark05, Far Cry, Half-Life 2 and UT2004.

Owners of Radeon videocards should head over to the ATI site, as a new Catalyst driver is now available for WinXP/2000. According to the 5.6 release notes offers improved WMV9 acceleration, performance improvements for DOOM 3, Halo, Chronicles of Riddick and 3DMark05 and fixes for MVP Baseball 2004, Shadow Vault and Virtual Skipper 3 among many changes. Thanks timm.

Following months of talk, ATI has finally unveiled their answer to NVIDIA's SLI solution to pair up videocards: Crossfire. ATI's solution allows you to buy a Crossfire edition of an X800 or X850 powered videocard, and mix that with any regular card with the same chipset from whatever manufacturer. Instead of bridging the two videocards, ATI relies on a special composing chip found on Crossfire compatible motherboards, which will mix the images. Also, while NVIDIA's solution depends on game specific profiles, ATI promises Crossfire will work with pretty much any Direct3D or OpenGL game though in most cases optimized driver profiles will help further improve performance. You can find a pair of ATI Crossfire previews at HardOCP and Tech Report (there are no benchmarks at this time though). Expect to see cards appearing in July.

We talked in the introduction about the fact that CrossFire does not rely on gaming profiles. What this means is that ATI does not have to wait for driver updates to support their multiple video card advantage in new and even old games. CrossFire is a feature that you simply enable and it just works, with no fuss or worry about what mode a game uses or if it has a driver profile or not. This is a good thing for gamers out there because we all don't just play the latest and greatest games. Some people still pop in an old game occasionally. With ATI's CrossFire, even that old game you decide to play will supposedly just work in multiple VPU mode. With those old games and these new AA settings, you should be able to crank up those old games to resolutions and AA settings to heights never seen before. Imagine putting in that old game that had many alpha textures where aliasing was a problem and being able to run with the 14XAA MS / 2XAA SS combination at a high resolution.

Update: Anand Tech also has a preview. They do have some benchmark numbers showing impressive results in DOOM 3.

ATI has released a new version of the Catalyst driver for Radeon videocards, fixing issues related to City of Heroes, 3DMark05 and Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic as outlined in the changelog.

Over at Tech Report you can find an article on the 512mb version of the Radeon X800 XL, which will be released by ATI hardware partners like Gigabyte, Abit, etc. Tech Report benchmarks the card against the 256mb version to see if the $450 price is worth it.

ATI has released the latest Catalyst videocard drivers (WinXP/2000), which are now at version 5.4. Release notes can be found here. It mentions fixes for Splinter Cell Chaos Theory, Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic, and Pacific Fighters among other products. Thanks JaredSyn.

A new month, a new Catalyst driver release for Radeon videocard owners. You can find release notes here. Thanks inmcm.

ATI has released the latest Catalyst drivers for Radeon videocards, v5.2. According to the release notes, there are Far Cry and 3DMark05 performance improvements (though only on the X800 series), and some Serious Sam & Sims 2 issues have been fixed. Thanks anthonybean.

The ATI website has been updated with the latest Catalyst WinXP/2000 driver for Radeon videocards, version 5.1. Release notes can be found here, the driver includes game specific fixes for Men of Valor, Richard Burns Rally and Sid Meier's Pirates!. Thanks anthonybean.

ATI has released the latest Catalyst driver for Radeon videocards, v4.12. According to the release notes this driver improves Half-Life 2 performance, and it also fixes issues with games like DOOM 3, Medal of Honor: Pacific Assault and Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic.

Over at the ATI website you can find the latest Catalyst driver release for Radeon powered videocards. Release ntoes for the v4.11 drivers can be found here.

ATI has released the latest Catalyst Win2K/XP driver for Radeon videocards, offering a few new features including 720p and 1080i HDTV Mode support. Release notes can be found here, the 4.10 release includes specific fixes for DOOM 3, City of Heroes, Psychotoxic and Ground Control 2.

A non-beta release of the ATI Catalyst 4.9 videocard driver is now available. There is one release with the usual ATI control panel, and another with the new Catalyst Control Center which requires .NET Version 1.1 Framework. Release notes for the 4.9 release can be found here; games effected this time include XIII, Far Cry, Painkiller and Knights of the Old Republic. DOOM 3 & UT2004 performance should be better as well. Thanks onemind.

NeoSeeker and Beyond3D have both taken a look at ATI's new Catalyst Control Center, a major update to the current average control panel. This includes real time previews of how settings you change will affect image quality in games. Look for the Catalyst Control Center some time this month, most likely with the 4.10 driver release. Update: looks like ATI is already offering this as a download, you need Microsoft's .NET Version 1.1 Framework installed though.

The ATI website has gone official with the Catalyst v4.8 drivers that may or may not perform the same as those BETA DOOM3 drivers that were put out not very long ago. You can of course grab them from FileShack as well.

ATI has released version 4.7 of the Catalyst drivers for the Radeon family of videocards. Release notes can be found here; includes specific fixes for Freedom Fighters, Halo, Splinter Cell Pandora Tomorrow and TOCA Race Driver. Thanks timm.

ATI has released new Catalyst drivers for Windows XP, version 4.6. Release notes can be found here, includes fixes for games like Halo, Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow, Battlefield Vietnam and Silent Storm. Thanks Nivorous.

Over at Tech Report you can find an interview with David Nalasco, Technology Marketing Manager at ATI. Nalasco is asked about the new Radeon X800 cards, HDTV tuner plans for future All-in-Wonder products, Shader Model 2.0b, temporal anti aliasing, OpenGL performance, and a lot of other graphics related things.

ATI today officially announced the Radeon X800, their new top of the line visual processor featuring 16 parallel pixel pipes and 6 vertex pipes. Two different versions will be released, the X800 XT Platinum Edition and the X800 PRO with the XT being the faster version. The Pro is available immediatly for $399, while the XT will ship later this month and will set you back $499. The press release also offers quotes from people at Digital Illusions, Irrational Games and Ritual Entertainment. Previews/reviews can be found at HardOCP, Tech-Report, AnandTech, Beyond 3D, HotHardware, Hardware Analysis, Gamers Depot, GameSpot and NeoSeeker.

The Radeon X800 series cards perform best in some of our most intensive benchmarks based on newer games or requiring lots of pixel shading power, including Far Cry, Painkiller, UT2004, and 3DMark03's Mother Nature scene - especially high resolutions with edge and texture antialiasing enabled. The X800s also have superior edge antialiasing. Their 6X multisampling mode reduces edge jaggies better than NVIDIA's 8xS mode, and the presence of temporal antialiasing only underscores ATI's leadership here. With a single-slot cooler, one power connector, and fairly reasonable power requirements, the Radeon X800 XT Platinum Edition offers all its capability with less inconvenience than NVIDIA's GeForce 6800 Ultra. What's more, ATI's X800 series will be in stores first, with a more mature driver than NVIDIA currently has for the GeForce 6800 line.