R480 to come in the fourth quarter

ATI'S NEXT FASTEST graphic thing will be based on 0.11µ (micron) architecture. This is the natural direction for ATI to migrate from 0.13µ low K marchitecture to pure 0.11µ without low K. When you make things smaller you can possibly clock a chip even higher, but we don't have any idea what frequency ATI is aiming for. That's exactly where its R480 chip is at this time.

We reported earlier that it will settle at more then 520MHz core and 600MHz, the limit for 0.11µ marchitecture. If you ask why 520MHz, that's simply because it has to run faster then its current flagship and still not available X800XT Press Edition. This card is clocked at 520MHz, a frequency that might be just too high for 0.13µ marchitecture. If yields are good, I would assume that they will settle to close to 550MHz, core but as you might guess it will aim to get the fastest possible frequency that it can reach.

We are also informed that ATI will use faster memory chips then its current 560/1120 MHz X800XT Platinum/Press/edition limit. You can see that even 700 MHz/1400MHz chips are available as we speak. You can see some of them here.

As for a possible name we heard about two possible options. It all still depends on performance, but ATI is still talking about either X900 or X850. This is still undecided.

The beauty of names and launch dates is that they change as often as we all change our undergarments. µ