The RV360 GPU
The Radeon 9600 XT is based on ATI's new RV360 GPU, which is quite similar to the RV350 chip found in the Radeon 9600 Pro. The RV360 shares the RV350's 4x1-pipe architecture and a host of other features that you can read about in my Radeon 9600 Pro review. Rather than rehash all the technology found in the RV360, I'd rather focus on what's new in the chip. ATI snuck a few surprises into the RV360 that are worth exploring.
Like the recently announced R360 GPU, which powers the Radeon 9800 XT, the RV360 supports GPU core temperature monitoring. Temperature monitoring is necessary for ATI's new OVERDRIVE automatic overclocking software, which will come to the Radeon 9600 XT in the Catalyst 3.9 driver release, slated for November. (The RV360 has all the necessary hardware support for OVERDRIVE to work, but the Cat 3.9s aren't ready yet.) Since OVERDRIVE will initially only offer the 9600 XT overclocked speeds of 513 and 527MHz, old fashioned overclocking may be a route for experienced enthusiasts.
To help give OVERDRIVE plenty of clock speed headroom, RV360 GPUs are being fabbed on a 0.13-micron manufacturing process using a special "Black Diamond" insulator that has less capacitance than the Fluorine-doped silicate glass insulator found in the RV350. Low capacitance (low-k) insulators can help chips reach higher clock speeds, which explains why ATI is able to clock the RV360 GPU at an even 500MHz on the Radeon 9600 XT?100MHz higher than the Radeon 9600 Pro. The fact ATI is rolling out OVERDRIVE support for the 9600 XT suggests the chip can handle clock speeds north of 500MHz, too.
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