ATI introduces the RADEON'R' X700 family of visual processors with best-in-class price and performance.

ATI Technologies Inc., has introduced the RADEON X700 family of visual processors. The RADEON X700 delivers excellent graphics performance for gaming and visual processing, at a price suited to a broad range of customers. Delivering a gaming experience that is anything but mainstream, the RADEON X700 visual processing units (VPUs) include the advanced, cutting-edge features previously introduced in ATI's RADEON X800 family of VPUs and a higher level of performance than some of last year's high-end visual processors, but for less than $200.

"The RADEON X700 has been designed to deliver amazing gaming performance in all of today's popular games," said Rick Bergman, Senior Vice President and General Manager, PC Business Unit, ATI Technologies Inc. "It's easy to perform well in one game, but the RADEON X700 demonstrates its rendering prowess by performing well in a wide spectrum of games. It also delivers industry leading image quality and multimedia features for customers who use their computers for a wider range of applications."

Based on the award winning RADEON X800 architecture and designed to closely adhere to Microsoft's DirectX 9 specification, the RADEON X700 includes advanced architectural elements and features previously reserved for products twice the price of the RADEON X700. The eight pixel pipe and six vertex pipe architecture is unique for products in this class, enabling unprecedented processing power than any other mid-range priced graphics processors on the market.

The RADEON X700 products, built by either ATI or one of its board partners, are supported by ATI's award winning CATALYST suite of software. CATALYST AI, a newly introduced feature of ATI's software suite, allows customers to enjoy improved levels of performance and a better overall experience with today's popular games. Users enable and control their preferred level of performance enhancement without having to sacrifice image quality.

The RADEON X700 family will include the RADEON X700 XT, the RADEON X700 PRO and the RADEON X700, with a variety of memory configurations and speeds to meet the wide range of needs of customers looking for a visual processor for gaming, streaming video, digital photo editing and other visually demanding activities. Priced as low as US $149, the RADEON X700 products deliver the best performance in their price segment.

The RADEON X700 PRO is now shipping. Products will be available soon from ATI and a stellar line-up of graphics card manufacturers including ABIT, ASUS, Connect3D, Diamond Multimedia, Giga-Byte, High-Tech, ITC, MSI, Palit, Sapphire, Tul, Visiontek and YUAN. The RADEON X700 XT and RADEON X700 will ship next month.