ATI Technologies on Wednesday announced the release of its revamped RADEON X800 XL with 512MB of memory onboard. The product is projected to offer increased performance in future games and give game developers opportunity to tailor forthcoming games for next-generation graphics cards with larger local buffers.

“With the RADEON X800 XL 512 MB, gamers will be able to max-out their image quality settings and render highly realistic images without having to compromise on performance,” said Rich Heye, Vice President and GM, Desktop Discrete Products, ATI Technologies.

A number of game developers applauded the release of ATI’s RADEON X800 XL 512MB graphics cards.

ATI RADEON X800 XL with 512MB of onboard is to feature default speeds for the RADEON X800 XL product – 400MHz for the visual processing unit and 1000MHz for GDDR3 memory. The product is equipped with DVI-I, D-Sub, video-in/video-out (VIVO) connectors and will be available for the PCI Express x16 bus initially. ATI RADEON X800 XL graphics processor is based on the R430 chip that features 16 pixel, 6 vertex pipelines and 256-bit memory controller.

Based on results of multiple games run at 1600*1200 resolution with FSAA obtained by X-bit labs web-site, ATI RADEON X800 XL 512MB does not have significant performance benefit over ATI RADEON X800 XL 256MB product save for Half-Life 2 and F.E.A.R. games. Still, ATI itself demonstrated substantial performance benefit RADEON X800 XL 512MB can bring. An X-bit labs article which is to be published Thursday says the RADEON X800 XL 512MB is meant for short-term future games that may require enlarged frame buffer.

Radeon X800XL 512MB will be available in May, with an MSRP of $449 from ATI's board partners including ABIT, Connect3D, GeCube, Gigabyte, HIS, MSI, Sapphire, TUL and VisionTek.

Earlier this year ATI demonstrated ATI RADEON X800 XT graphics card with 512MB local buffer. The firm said the product would not be available in retail.