Markham (ON) - ATI today unveiled a new flagship of its Mobility Radeon graphics processor family. The 16-pipeline chip delivers performance on par with the X800 XT PE desktop chip, the manufacturer promises.

More than one third of all computers shipped this year will be notebooks. The times when notebook computers had to be just mobile are long gone -so it is not a big surprise that ATI and Nvidia are stepping up their initiatives to fight for the top spot in graphics performance in the desktop replacement sector (DTR).

Nvidia recently gained the performance crown with its GeForce Go 6800 Ultra and the probably most prestigious design win in this segment - Dell's XPS Gen2. However, ATI answered today with its Mobility Radeon X800 XT, which will deliver "virtual parity" in performance with the desktop chip Radeon X800 XT PE, ATI said.

Features of the notebook chip are comparable to the desktop processor. The Mobility Radeon X800 XT integrates 16 pipelines, six vertex shaders and support for up to 256 MByte 256-bit GDDR3 memory. The PCI Express-based processor is built in 0.13 nm, allows screen resolutions up to QXGA (2048 x 1536 pixel). A surpising feature is a significantly lower consumption than the competing Nvidia chip: In contrast to the more than 65 watts of the GeForce Go 6800 Ultra, ATI's mobile chips consumer only 35 watts, according to an AT spokeswoman.

According to ATI, the Mobility Radeon X800 XT will be available in notebooks from including Alienware, Rock, Eurocom, VoodooPC, HyperSonic, Pro-Star, Velocity Micro and Sager. It was unclear however, when actual notebooks integrating the chip will be available for purchase.

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