ATI has confirmed yesterday's MegaGames report, which claimed that the surprise the company has in store for gamers this weekend is the first gaming 512 MB graphics card.
The Canadian manufacturer has invited gamers and its marketing partners to visit the Ultimate LAN, held in association with the Texas Gaming Festival in Dallas, on February 25th to 27th to witness an overclocking demonstration and a PC modding event. Attendees will get the opportunity to preview the world's first 512MB gaming card and one lucky gamer will even get to take one home.
According to Rich Heye, Vice President and GM, Desktop Discrete Products, ATI, ...we are giving attendees at this event an opportunity to check out the world's first 512MB gaming cards before we send them out to our software partners for development of next-generation games.
According to a variety of sources, the card showcased at TGF will be an R520 and ATI plans to name it the X950XT. For suspected specs for the new board read yesterday's ATI to Reveal Surprise Board at TGF.
It seems that, following from Shader models and pipelines, the new battlefield for the next generation of graphics boards will involve some form of memory war as both companies are working on 512 MB versions of their boards. Just today, Gainward revealed plans for a 512 MB 6800 Ultra card, with an expected unveiling March 10 during the German SnoBit show.
Clearly ATI have tried to surprise everyone with the quick unveiling of its new board. A look at the current Futuremark Hall of Fame makes for depressing reading for ATI fans and the company will have to truly present an outstanding board this weekend if it is to make a dent on its rivals benchmark lead.
Such a high profile event is worth attending however, so if you are around at the time don't miss the chance of winning the ATI beast, or one of the other prizes which sponsors such as ABIT, AMD, ArenaNet, ATARI, Corsair, Gigabyte, Kingston, LG, NCSoft, OCZ, Running with Scissors, Sapphire and UBISOFT will be offering.
