DailyTech's early review of X1900

It is true that the release of X1900 video card from ATi is getting closer. DailyTech has all the story about it and they even conducted an early benchmark of this graphics card.

Reading the article at that site makes me realize my biggest mistakes ever: the understanding of pixel pipelines and ROPs (Raster Operation Units). It makes me realizes that I have overcalculated the specs for 7800 GTX (or G70 architecture in general). 7800 GTX still boasts nearly similar pixel fillrate as 6800 Ultra, that is around 6.8 Gpixels/sec. I thought the ROPs for 7800 GTX is 24 (a common assumption many people do is the no. of pixel pipelines = no. of ROPs).

ExtremeTech has an article that explains this (for those who have already realized this, don't bang me for this!).

Back to X1900, many people including myself believe that this is what X1800 should have been.
My opinion is ATi has missed one product cycle to compete with NVIDIA for the same range of video card. For example;

6800 Ultra vs. X800 XT
7800 GTX vs. X1800 XT (this is where X1900 should be)
G71 vs. X1900 (G71 might beat X1900 here, who knows!)

Maybe other people have different opinion about this, maybe I'm wrong, but ATi certainly needs to catch up. X1900 might not hold the crown for a long time, as rumours regarding G71 is also appearing (only rumours!). Anyway, X1900 can be considered a true contender from ATi at the moment, period!