ATI X1900 with 48 pixel processors?

[AnotherGuy]

Ok I just read the news on AT about the ATI x1900 that is coming soon (hopefully)

Now can some1 explain me wth 48 pixel processors mean? is that pixel pipelines or wtf?

If so then wow.. and increased vpu and memory speeds? That thing looks like a frikin HULK.. Nvidia prepare to be owned!

 

[Skott]

I read something that the new crossfire mobo that is due to come out in February is the mobo that'll take true advantage of the x1800 and x1900. Without that mobo though the new cards still cant beat SLI. I think its supposed to be a DFI mobo. Remember reading something about it from dfi street a little while back. It'll be interesting to see what happens.

 

[ViRGE]

Originally posted by: AnotherGuy
Ok I just read the news on AT about the ATI x1900 that is coming soon (hopefully)

Now can some1 explain me wth 48 pixel processors mean? is that pixel pipelines or wtf?

With the advant of advanced pixel shading, pipelines has become an abused word lately. It was an adequate term when you built one of everything on each "pipeline" but now this is not the case. However, the original definition was around chips such as the TNT, which had 2 pipelines, so I like to define the term around the ability to texture individual pixels.

Given that, the 1900 is said to have 16 individual texturing units, so the 1900 would still be a 16 pipeline card. The change would be that now there are in effect 3 pixel shading units for each pipeline, instead of 1. So the card will be faster in situations where it is pixel shader bound(and I think vertex bound too), but not where it is texture bound(hint for ATI: going cheap on texture units doesn't always work out. See: X1600).