Radeon is a brand of graphics processing units (GPU) that has been manufactured by ATI Technologies since 2000. There are three different groups, which can be differentiated by the DirectX generation they support.
The first Radeon processors were launched in 2000, and were initially code-named Rage 6, later R100. They were specified similar to the nVidia GeForce 2, mainly being different in supporting Hyper-Z, a technology designed to remove obscured objects from image processing. However, the Radeon's performance in 16-bit colour was poor (especially compared to the GeForce 2 and 3dfx's Voodoo 5 5500), and it suffered from lower pixel and texel fillrates (though Hyper-Z was able to make up for this to some degree). In 2001, after the release of the Radeon 8500, the original model was renamed as the Radeon 7200.
Other models of the original Radeon were the Radeon VE (RV100, later known at the Radeon 7000), which had one of the texturing units removed and had a 64-bit memory bus, as opposed to the 128-bit bus on the Radeon. The T&L engine and Hyper-Z was also removed. Another model was the Radeon LE, which was simply a Radeon clocked lower, and with Hyper-Z disabled at the software level (unlike the VE, where it wasn't built into the chip). The final model was the Radeon 7500 (R150), which was based on a 0.15 micron manufacturing process (R(V)100 used a 0.18 micron process) and clocked considerably higher than the R100. However, when nVidia launched the GeForce4 family, the Radeon 7500's performance was inferior to nVidia's similarly-priced GeForce4 MX440. This lead ATI to release its successor, the Radeon 9000.
(Ranked in performance order, best performing model at the bottom)
ATI's first DirectX 8 card was the Radeon 8500, which was launched together with the Radeon 8500LE (later the Radeon 9100). The 8500 was able to outperform the GeForce3 (and in some circumstances, its faster variant, the Ti500), while the 8500LE became popular with OEMs and enthusiasts due to its low price. However, the 8500/LE was shipped without a working Anti-Aliasing implementation, and suffered a reputation for poor drivers throughout its life.
A second version, the 8500XT (R250) was supposedly in the works, ready to compete against the GeForce4 cards, but ATI (perhaps mindful of what had happened to 3dfx when they took focus off their "Rampage" processor) abandoned it, in favour of finishing off their next-generation card.
The Radeon 9000 (RV250) was launched alongside the 9700, and was basically a stripped-down 8500, incorporating a few improvements that had been put into the never-released 8500XT. It replaced the Radeon 7500 and was ATI's answer to the GeForce 4 MX440. Its main advantage over the GeForce4 MX440 was that it had a full vertex and pixel shader implementation. In games, it performed around the same as the GeForce 4 MX440. A later version of the 9000 was the 9200 (RV280), which, asides from supporting AGP-8X, was identical. However, there was a cheaper version, the 9200SE, which only had a 64-bit memory bus.
(Ranked in performance order, best performing model at the bottom)
The first DirectX 9 card from ATI (or anyone, for that matter) was the Radeon 9700 Pro (R300), launched in August 2002. The main improvements came from a greatly improved single-texturing speed (multi-texturing was around the same as the GeForce 4 TI4600's), and a 256-bit memory bus, which offered just under double the memory bandwidth of the Ti4600. In addition, the Radeon 9700 Pro was the world's first chip to feature 8 pixel pipelines, as well as the AGP 8x bus standard. Under normal conditions it beat the Ti4600 by around 15-20%, and when Anti-Aliasing and/or Anisotropic Filtering were switched on it beat the Ti4600 by anywhere from 40-100%. A slower chip, the 9700, was launched a few months later, differing only by slower core and memory speeds.
A few months later, the 9500 and 9500 Pro were launched. The 9500 Pro had half the memory bus width of the 9700 Pro, and the 9500 had half the pixel processing units disabled. The 9500 Pro outperformed all of nVidia's products (save the TI4600), while the 9500 also became popular because it could be moded into the much more powerful Radeon 9700. However, ATI's strategy here was flawed, as all the R300 chips were both based on the same physical die, meaning that ATI's production costs were high and chips could be modded to their higher end counterparts.
In early 2003, the 9700 cards were replaced by the 9800 (R350). These were basically R300s with higher speeds, and improvements to the shader units and memory controller, and was designed to maintain a performance lead over the newly launched GeForce FX 5800 Ultra (though it wasn't entirely necessary, as the 5800 GPUs never went into mass-production), which it managed to do. A later version with 256MB of memory used DDR-II SDRAM. The other two variants were the 9800, which was simply a lower-clocked 9800 Pro, and the 9800SE, which had half the pixel processing units disabled. Official ATI specs dictate a 256-bit memory bus for the 9800SE, but almost all manufacturers use a 128-bit bus.
The 9500 was replaced by the 9600 (and its Pro variant), and while the 9600 Pro didn't outperform its 9500 equivalent, it was much more economical for ATI to produce by way of a 0.13 micron process (all ATI's cards since the 7500/8500 had been 0.15 micron) and a simplified design. The 9600 Pro did, however, largely manage to beat nVidia's GeForce FX 5600 Ultra.
Later in 2003, three new cards were launched - the 9800XT, (R360), the 9600XT and the 9600SE (both RV360). The 9800XT was slightly faster than the 9800 Pro had been, while the 9600XT competed well with the newly launched GeForce FX 5700 Ultra. The 9600SE was ATI's answer to nVidia's GeForce FX 5200 Ultra, and managed to perform roughly equal to the first, and was priced lower than the latter. Another RV360 chip followed in early 2004, the 9550, which was a 9600 with a lower core clock (though an identical memory clock and bus width).
(Ranked in performance order, best performing model at the bottom)
In May 2004, the newest Radeons were launched - the Radeon X Series.
The X800s were the first, based on the R420 core. The X800s are essentially quad-core RV360 chips, produced on a 0.13 micron process and using GDDR-3 memory. In terms of supported DirectX features, they are identical to the R3xx cores. The highest-end version is the X850XT Platinum Edition, a fully enabled R420 core, with slightly lower-clocked versions, X850XT, X800XT Platinum Edition, and X800XT also available. The third X800 card, the X800XL is an underclocked version of the X800XT, but possesses all 16 pipelines of the higher end card. It is ATI's answer to the nVidia GeForce 6800GT. The fourth X800, the X800 Pro is similar to the X800XT, but with 1/4 of the chip disabled. A fifth version, the X800SE, is expected to be launched shortly, and will have half of the core disabled.
This was followed the next month by the X300 and X600 series, which were little more than PCI-Express versions of the Radeon 9600 series. The X600 proved to be only a stopgap, being replaced by the X700 series in September. The X700 series had a similar core and memory setup to the 9500 Pro, only clocked much higher and produced on a 0.11 micron process. The fastest version, the X700XT performs comparably to the 9800XT.
Radeon is a brand of graphics processing units (GPU) that has been manufactured by ATI Technologies since 2000. There are three different groups, which can be differentiated by the DirectX generation they support.
ATI's Windows Radeon drivers are called CATALYST™. The current version is 5.1. Download Latest Drivers
Initially, ATI did not produce Radeon drivers for Linux. ATI has recently, however, started to support Linux (XFree86), hiring a new Linux driver team. The new Linux drivers, instead of being a port of the Catalyst drivers, are based on the drivers for the FireGL, a card geared towards graphics producers, not gamers. Driver updates have increased in 2004, with a plan to have Linux drivers every four weeks, like their Windows counterparts.
Although ATI does not provide its own drivers for BeOS, it provides hardware and technical documentation to the Haiku Project who provide drivers with full 2D and video in/out support. They are the sole graphics manafacturer in any way still supporting BeOS.