While ATI Technologies itself decided not to offer its RADEON X1800-series graphics products for AGP 8x bus used in older machines, some of its partners are set to offer AGP 8x graphics cards based on a RADEON X1800-series graphics processing unit (GPU). If this happens, owners of old-generation systems will receive the highest-performing AGP cards ever.

Diamond Multimedia currently advertises its Diamond Viper ATI RADEON X1800 graphics cards with AGP 8x and PCI Express x16 support on its web-site. The page notes that the products are expected to be available in November, 2005, but does not indicate pricing. The web-page even does not indicate whether the model X1800 XL or X1800 XT is set to acquire AGP interface.

ATI RADEON X1800 XL and XT graphics processors feature native PCI Express x16 interface, thus, to make a graphics card with AGP 8x based on the chip will require a special PCI Express-to-AGP bridge called ATI Rialto. Earlier this year numerous makers of graphics cards used Rialto to make RADEON X800 XL and RADEON X800 GTO-based graphics cards for AGP using Rialto bridge.

While few customers currently buy computers featuring AGP 8x slots, there are still some powerful machines featuring processors like AMD Athlon 64 FX or Intel Pentium 4 Extreme Edition central processing units (CPUs) that have enough performance to play modern games, but would demand a high-performance GPU for comfortable playing. So far the most powerful AGP 8x graphics card has been ATI RADEON X850 XT Platinum Edition, as NVIDIA Corp. did not release its GeForce 7800-series products for AGP 8x.

ATI RADEON X1800-series GPUs feature Shader Model 3.0, high dynamic range lighting, a brand-new architecture and other innovations.