ATI Technologies, a leading supplier of discrete graphics processors, has unveiled its new Radeon X1950-series graphics cards, the first product family ever that uses new generation GDDR4 memory. The new graphics cards are projected to offer increased performance in high resolutions compared to previous-generation solutions.

“The Radeon X1950 gives gamers exactly what they want - super high frame rates and the best looking games possible, with image quality features that can’t be found anywhere else,” said Rick Bergman, senior vice president and general manager, PC business, ATI Technologies.

The Radeon X1950 XTX was previously known as code-named R580+ product, which features the same Radeon X1900 XTX chip with 48 pixel shader processors and 8 vertex shader processors, but now equipped with GDDR4 memory at 2.0GHz clock-speeds compared to previous-generation’s GDDR3 at 1.55GHz. While the graphics processing unit (GPU) itself is exactly the same as announced in January, 2006, it features a reprogrammed memory controller that is able to work with GDDR4 memory.

Even though the Radeon X1950 XTX is a new flagship offering from ATI, it is priced at just $449 (€399), much lower than $649 price-point of the Radeon X1900 XTX when announced earlier this year.

The unveiling of the Radeon X1950 XTX automatically drops the price-points of ATI’s rest product in the Radeon family. For example, the Radeon X1900 XT 256MB, a new addition to the lineup, will cost $279.

By using GDDR4 memory now ATI Technologies not only ensures that its top-of-the-range product not only has industry-leading memory bandwidth, but also learns how the GDDR4 memory behaves and how to make GDDR4-based graphics cards in volumes with sufficient yields and lowest possible costs.

ATI also announced today that it is bringing graphics cards at lower price-points with the new Radeon X1650 Pro, and Radeon X1300 XT later during the quarter.