During the launch of ATI’s x1000 series of graphics card a year ago, one of the features that ATI was very excited about was the programmable and versatile memory controller found on the x1800 series. In their presentation, ATI informed us that in the future, their new memory controller would easily be able to work with GDDR4 once the pricing and availability for that is reasonable.

Fast forward by a year and almost two weeks back, ATI introduced their x1950 XTX graphics card with GDDR4 memory running at an impressive frequency of 1000MHz (2GHz DDR) which is 250MHz higher than their previous high-end offering- the x1900 XTX. According to ATI, GDDR4 memory uses less power per clock cycle than the current GDDR3-standard memory chips.

The core on the X1950 XTX almost remains unchanged running at the same frequency as the x1900- 650MHz. ATI does say that the core is tweaked and thus the model number has changed from R580 to R580+ and from our talks with ATI, that + sign is basically an updated/tweaked memory controller that will also take over the x1900 series in the future.

The most visible change to these new cards is the introduction of the new HST unit on the x1950XTX cards that certainly looks wicked. The new cooler introduces a heatpipe to transfers heat to copper fins that have a huge fan blowing on them. Like the previous X1900 and x1800 HSF units, the hot air is still flushed out although the fan is moved a little more inside to reduce the noise levels.

Thats about all the new things we could find on the x1950. At the moment, the x1950XT is selling for US$440 at newegg.com which is pretty normal for a new high-end graphics card. If you dont necessary like to spend on the bleeding edge of technology, you can pick up the x1900XTX for almost $100 less.