RV360

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<center>ATI Radeon 9600 XT</center>

In addition to the 9800 XT, ATI will also be introducing an XT version of its mid-range Radeon 9600 product soon. The new RV360 chip, on which the 9600 XT will be based, is a tweaked version of the chip on the Radeon 9600 Pro. It's essentially a four-pipeline version of the R300 VPU from the original Radeon 9700. Like the current Radeon 9600 Pro, the Radeon 9600 XT will be fabbed with TSMC's 0.13-micron process. Unlike the current 9600, though, TSMC will use a low-k dielectric in fabricating the new RV360 chips, which should reduce the RV360's power requirements and allow for higher clock speeds. As a result, the Radeon 9600 XT should hit core clock speeds upwards of 500MHz, and ATI will pair it up with memory running at over 600MHz.

ATI says the Radeon 9600 XT will have a small, quiet cooler, and it won't require a secondary power connector like the 9800 XT. 9600 XT cards will cost about $199 when they first arrive some time in October, and to sweeten the deal, all new Radeon cards will soon be shipping with Half-Life 2 in the box.

The Tech Report

[The__tweaker]

Sweet card, maybe something to consider for gaming rigs on a budget.

But could it really play HF2 decent..:?:

[Soulburner]

Yes it will.

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RV360 / Radeon 9600 XT reviews

The Tech Report
HardOCP
Tom's Hardware Guide
Hot Hardware
Driver Heaven

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<center>Ignore all Radeon 9600XT reviews: a new baby is coming
New silicon shipped yesterdayThe Inquirer

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<center>Graphics firm Power Color set to boost Radeon 9600XT spec
Up to 160MHz faster, memory wise</center>

Same cards, same PCB, maybe a different colour, eh Hercules? And then the same clock speeds and just another sticker. This is how we can describe ATI card vendors. With all the cards made by Sapphire, with just a few exceptions.
There are only two companies that can be bothered to actually change some things on these cards. One of them is Tyan and second is Power Color. Power Color has the intention to clock their cards faster than any other, we learned, making it a little bit gainwardish with exception that they just use faster memory,

So, as was the case with the Radeon 9800 PRO and 9600 PRO, Power Color will make XT cards faster than ATI specifications.

Powercolor will introduce three versions of the Radeon 9600XT and at least two of them will be branded as Bravo, possibly inspired by Rio Bravo from Western movies and John Wayne.

The first Bravo will feature 256MB of memory with VIVO module and will use standard clocked RV360 chip at 500MHz while memory will go at 680 MHz - 80 MHz faster then ATI standard cards.

Power Color will have one more 9600XT bravo card with 128MB of memory, a 500MHz Chip and - magnificently - 760 MHz memory clock - 160 MHz faster than ATI's specification for all look-a-like Radeons.

A third card will use original ATI guidelines with exception that the Ram will be replaced with 128MB of 2.8ns memory, while ATI recommends all to implement 3.3ns memory for these cards.

We can assume that these cards will win many benchmarks against 500MHz core and 600MHz memory-clocked cards but this is yet to be seen.

As for availability, first half of November sounds about right.

The Inquirer

[Soulburner]

9600XT vs FX5700U

Up from 500/300, that's a pretty special core overclock for a midrange board and I'll stick my neck out and say 600MHz core should be achievable on partner boards with better cooling than the measly aluminium affair on the reference board.

Overclocked NV36 is a different matter, that thing does even sillier speeds (how does 595/1050 stable sound?) and the memory bandwidth advantage is huge, but at stock clocks 9600XT is a good buy and a recommended no fuss midrange board. Hopefully we'll see partner boards shortly.

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ATI benchmarking white paper

Beyond3D have just published a very interesting white paper, written by ATi as a commentary on benchmarking and benchmarking practices to go alongside the Radeon 9600XTs release.

It's well worth a read, and you can find the document in PDF format here.

Elite *******s

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Hercules 3D Prophet 9600 XT

500MHz Core
325MHz Memory (650MHz effective)
128MB DDR memory
128Bit Memory Interface
4 Pipeline architecture
DirectX 9
VGA + DVI + TV outputs
Dual display support