ATI's revolutionary RADEON 9700 fully validated with upcoming and platform.

ATI Technologies Inc. (TSX:ATY; NASDAQ:ATYT) has announced the full validation of its revolutionary RADEON 9700 graphics chip with the upcoming AMD Athlon and AMD Opteron processors based on Hammer Technology.

The RADEON 9700 chip, which offers more bandwidth than any other graphics chip in the world, will work efficiently and seamlessly with AMD's leading edge platforms--based on the newly specified Accelerated Graphics Port (AGP) 8X interface--to deliver solid and stable solutions for commercial and consumer use. The RADEON 9700 becomes the world's first AGP 8X part to be validated by AMD. "The RADEON 9700 chip's compatibility with AMD's compelling 8X platform makes for a powerful and productive computing experience," says Rick Bergman, Senior Vice President, Marketing and General Manager, Desktop, ATI Technologies Inc. "We have teamed up with AMD to ensure that our RADEON 9700 products and supporting software are optimized for AMD platforms based on Hammer Technology. The validation is exciting news for both our companies and especially for our joint customers."

ATI's next-generation RADEON 9700 chip, a visual processing unit (VPU) that revolutionizes the visual experience, brings a new level of 3-D realism and killer graphics power to the market. The fastest 3-D chip in the world, ATI's RADEON 9700 doubles the number of pixel pipelines to turbo charge data transmission. With 128 MB Fast DDR memory, this incredible product offers a new level of movie-like realism. The RADEON 9700 chip complements the AMD platforms that support AGP 8X to deliver twice the graphics processing bandwidth of current AGP 4X systems.

Together, these cutting-edge systems from ATI and AMD support applications that require massive amounts of physical and virtual memory, such as database management solutions. System flexibility and increased graphics data throughput will benefit corporate users who require improved performance for CAD or digital content creation, as well as consumers for gaming and broadband purposes. Investment protection is another huge benefit as AMD processors with Hammer Technology--the industry's first x86-64 bit systems--run 32-bit applications natively, while allowing a transition path through 64-bit extensions, as customers require.

"The RADEON 9700 validation is a milestone in our ongoing collaboration with ATI," said Rich Heye, vice president of platform engineering and infrastructure, Computation Products Group, AMD. "AMD Opteron and AMD Athlon processors based on Hammer Technology and ATI's RADEON 9700 family of products will provide customers optimized 32-bit performance along with the flexibility to seamlessly migrate to 64-bit environments."

AMD Athlon processor-based systems give users one of the highest levels of software performance available today. AMD Athlon processors provide outstanding performance for cutting-edge software applications running on today's high-end desktop systems, notebooks, workstations, and servers. The AMD Opteron processor is based on AMD's eighth-generation processor core, which is planned to mark the introduction of the industry's first x86-64 technology. This technology is planned to preserve companies' investments in 32-bit applications while allowing a seamless transition to 64-bit computing, as those companies require. The AMD Opteron processor is designed to deliver high-performance server and workstation solutions for today's most demanding enterprise applications. The processor is designed to be scalable, reliable and compatible, which can result in lower total cost of ownership. Key AMD Opteron processor innovations include an integrated memory controller, which reduces memory bottlenecks, and HyperTransport technology, which increases overall performance by removing or reducing I/O bottlenecks, increasing bandwidth and reducing latency.

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).