Radeon is a brand of graphics processing units and random access memory produced by Advanced Micro Devices. The brand was launched in 2000 by ATI Technologies, which was acquired by AMD in 2006. Radeon is the successor to the Rage line. There are four different groups, which can be differentiated by the DirectX generation they support. More specific distinctions can also be followed, such as the HyperZ version, the number of pixel pipelines, and of course, the memory and processor clock speeds.
Card brands
AMD no longer sells Radeon cards directly at the retail level. Instead, it sells Radeon GPUs to third-party manufacturers, who build and sell the Radeon-based video cards to the OEM and retail channels. Manufacturers of the Radeon cards include Sapphire, XFX, Asus, Gigabyte, MSI, Biostar, Gainward, Diamond, HIS, PowerColor, Club 3D, VisionTek and Force3D.Processor generations
| Retail/card series name | Chip series | Manufacturing process | Graphics APIs support | Notes | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DirectX | OpenGL | ||||
| R7000-R7200 | R100 | 180 nm | DirectX 7.0 | OpenGL 1.3 | ATI's first graphics processor to be fully DirectX 7 compliant, first introduced in 2000. R100 brought with it large gains in bandwidth and fill-rate efficiency through the new HyperZ technology. Initial models included Radeon SDR, DDR, LE(DDR) and 7000/VE. |
| R7500 | RV200 | 150 nm | Die-shrink of the former R100 with some core logic tweaks for clockspeed, introduced in 2001. The only release was the Radeon 7500. | ||
| R8500,R9000-R9250 | R200 | DirectX 8.1 | OpenGL 1.4 | ATI's second generation Radeon. This design included ATI's first programmable pixel shader architecture and introduced the more advanced pixel shader 1.4. This line includes Radeon 8500, 9000, 9200 and 9250. | |
| R9500-R9800, X300-X600, X1050 | R300 | DirectX 9.0 | OpenGL 2.0 | ATI's DirectX 9.0 technology, released in 2002, incorporated pixel shader. Included in this generation are Radeon 9500–9800, X300–X600, and X1050. | |
| X700-850 | R420 | 130 nm | DirectX 9.0b | While heavily based upon the previous generation, this line included extensions to the Shader Model 2 feature-set. Shader Model 2b, the specification ATI and Microsoft defined with this generation, offered somewhat more shader program flexibility. This generation's technology is used in Radeon X700–X850. | |
| X1300-1950 | R520 | 90/80 nm | DirectX 9.0c | ATI's DirectX 9.0c series of graphics cards, with complete Shader Model 3.0 support. Launched in October 2005, this series brought a number of enhancements including the floating point render target technology necessary for HDR rendering with anti-aliasing. Cards released include X1300–X1950. These were the last graphics cards to be released with the prefix 'X'- new cards use the prefixes 'HD', although sometimes called 'R'. | |
| HD2000-HD3000 | R600 | 65/55 nm | DirectX 10.0/ DirectX 10.1 (RV670) |
OpenGL 3.3 | ATI's first series of ATI Radeon GPUs supporting the Direct3D 10.0 specification and the company's second graphics solution to employ unified shader technology. Releases of this platform include the HD 2400, HD 2600 and HD 2900. There are also products supporting DirectX 10.1, known as the HD 3000 series, with a die shrink. |
| HD4000 | R700 | 55 nm | DirectX 10.1 | Based on the R600 architecture. Mostly a bolstered card with many more stream processors, with improvements to power consumption and GDDR5 support for the high-end RV770 and RV740(HD4770) chips. It arrived in late June 2008. The HD 4850 and HD 4870 have 800 stream processors and GDDR3 and GDDR5 memory, respectively. The 4890 was a refresh of 4870 with the same amount of stream processors yet higher clock rates due to refinements. The 4870x2 has 1600 stream processors and GDDR5 memory on an effective 512-bit memory bus with 230.4 Gbit/s video memory bandwidth available. | |
| HD5000 | Evergreen | 40 nm | DirectX 11 | OpenGL 4.1 | The series was launched on September 23, 2009. It features a 40 nm fabrication process (instead of 55 nm before, except HD4770(R7V40)), with more stream cores and compatibility with the next major version of the DirectX API, DirectX 11, which launched on October 22, 2009 along with Microsoft Windows 7. The Rxxx/RVxxx codename scheme was scrapped entirely. The first cards out of the gate are the 5870 and 5850. ATI has released beta drivers that introduces full OpenGL 4.0 support on the all variants of this series. |
| HD6000 | Northern Islands | This is the first series to be marketed solely under the "AMD" brand. It features a 3rd generation 40 nm design, rebalancing the existing architecture with redesigned shaders to give it better performance. It was released first on October 22, 2010, in the form of the 6850 and 6870. 3D output is enabled with HDMI 1.4a and DisplayPort 1.2 outputs. | |||
| HD7000 | Southern Islands | 40/28 nm | DirectX 11/ DirectX 11.1 |
OpenGL 4.2 | Features a new compute architecture known as "Graphics Core Next", along with the VLIW4 architecture utilized in the previous generation. The first card, the 7970, was released on January 9, 2012. |
Nomenclature
Currently, ATI names each card by generation, series, and by performance. The first number is the generation number (e.g. 5000) and is related to the chipset used by the video card. The second number indicates the series quality in the generation. Currently, a 7970 would be a high-end card, whereas a 7570 would be a budget card. The charts below describe this in further depth, as well as how it has changed over time. The third digit is the relative quality within a series; for example, a 5850 is less powerful than a 5870. Typically, a card of a higher series will always have more processing power than a card in a lower series, even if the relative quality is better (a 5770 will be outperformed by a 5850). Originally, suffixes were used to determine relative quality.Since ATI's first DirectX 9-class GPU, the company has followed a naming scheme that relates each product to a market segment. The original naming scheme is shown below:
See also: ATI video card suffixes
| Product category | Card name (* denotes wildcard) |
Usual suffixes | Price range (USD) | Memory | Outputs | Example products | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Type | Width (bit) | Size (MiB) | ||||||
| Enthusiast/ high-end |
*9** *8** |
XTX, XT, XT PE, XL, Pro, GTO, GT, | >$100 | GDDR3, GDDR4, GDDR5 |
256, or 512 |
256, 512, or 1,024 | Dual DVI with HDMI (HD 2000 dongle) |
9800, X800, X1950, HD 2900 |
| Mainstream | *7** *6** *5** |
XT, XL, Pro, SE, GTO, GT, HD | $50–100 | DDR2, GDDR3, GDDR4 |
128 | 128, 256, 512, or 1,024 | D-sub,DVI/ Dual DVI with HDMI (HD 2000 dongle) |
7500, X700, X1600, HD 2600 |
| Budget/value | *4** *3** *2** *1** *0** |
SE, HM | <$50 | DDR2, GDDR3 |
64 | 64, or 128 (HM: 768, or 1,024) |
D-sub, DVI with HDMI (HD 2000 dongle) |
X300, X1050, X1400, HD 2400 |
- ^1 Stream processors only applicable to Radeon HD 2000 series video cards.
Since the release of the Radeon HD 3000 series products, previous PRO, XT, GT, and XTX suffixes were eliminated, products will be differentiated by changing the last two digits of the product model number (for instance, HD 3850 and HD 3870, giving the impression that the HD 3870 model having higher performance than HD 3850).[2] Similar changes to the integrated graphics processor (IGP) naming were spotted as well, for the previously launched AMD M690T chipset with side-port memory, the IGP is named Radeon X1270, while for the AMD 690G chipset, the IGP is named Radeon X1250, as for AMD 690V chipset, the IGP is clocked lower and having fewer functions and thus named Radeon X1200.
ATI's next numbering scheme of video products is shown below:
| Product category | Model number range (steps of 10)1 |
Price range (USD) |
Memory | Outputs | Product(s) | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Type | Width (bit) | Size (MiB) | |||||
| Enthusiast/ high-end |
800–990 | >$300 | GDDR3, GDDR4, GDDR5 |
256 | 256, 512, or 1,024 | 2 DVI, HDMI, DP (dongle) |
HD 3850/3870 HD 4830/4850/4870/4890 HD 5830/5850/5870/5970 |
| Mainstream | 600–790 | $150–250 | DDR2, GDDR3, GDDR4 |
128 | 128, 256, 512, or 1,024 | D-sub, DVI | HD 3650 HD 4650/4670 HD 5670/5750/5770 |
| DVI, 2 DP, HDMI (dongle) |
|||||||
| Budget/value | 330–590 | <$150 | DDR2, GDDR3 |
64 | 64, or 128 (HM: 768, or 1,024) |
D-sub, DVI, HDMI, DP (dongle) |
HD 3450/3470 HD 5450/5550/5570 |
| Integrated graphics processor (IGP) |
000–300 | N/A | UMA, side-port memory (GDDR2/GDDR3) |
UMA, 16 (side-port) | 64, UMA (OS dependent) |
D-sub, DVI, HDMI, DP, Component (YCbCr) |
X1270/X1250/X1200 HD 3200/HD 3100/2100 |
- ^1 The last two digits denotes variant, similar to the previous suffixes, which 70 is in essence the XT variant while 50 is actually the Pro variant.[3]
- ^2 Stream processors only applicable to Direct3D 10-class video components and above (Radeon HD 2000/3000/4000/5000 series).
| Product category | Model number range (steps of 10)1 |
Price range (USD) |
Memory | Outputs | Product(s) | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Type | Width (bit) | Size (MiB) | |||||
| Enthusiast/ high-end |
900–990 | >$300 | GDDR5 | 256 or 384 | 2,048 2 x 2,048 |
2 DVI, HDMI, mini-DP | HD 6950/6970 HD 6990/HD 7970 HD 7950/HD 7990 |
| Performance/Mid-range | 700-890 | $150–299 | GDDR5 | 128 256 |
1,024 or 2,048 | 2 DVI, HDMI, 2 mini-DP | HD 6750/6770 HD 6790/6850/6870 HD 7750/7770 HD 7850/7870 |
| Mainstream/Value | 500-690 | <$150 | DDR3, GDDR3, GDDR5 |
128 | 512 or 1,024 | D-sub, DVI, HDMI, mini-DP | HD 6570/6670 |
| Mainstream Fusion SoC | 400–690 | N/A | UMA, side-port memory (DDR3)? |
UMA, side-port? | 128, UMA (OS dependent) |
D-sub, DVI, HDMI, mini-DP | HD 6450 Llano IGP: HD 6550D/6530D |
| Low-power Fusion SoC | 000–390 | N/A | UMA | UMA, | 64, UMA (OS dependent) |
D-sub, DVI, HDMI, mini-DP | Ontario/Zacate IGP: HD 6320D/6310D/6290D/6250D |
Drivers
Windows
Main article: AMD Catalyst
The ATI Radeon graphics driver package for Windows operating system is called AMD Catalyst.There are unofficial modifications available such as Omega drivers and DNA drivers. These drivers typically consist of mixtures of various driver file versions with some registry variables altered and are advertised as offering superior performance or image quality. They are, of course, unsupported, and as such, are not guaranteed to function correctly. Some of them also provide modified system files for hardware enthusiasts to run specific graphics cards outside of their specifications.
Macintosh
ATI previously offered driver updates for their retail and integrated Macintosh video cards and chipsets. However, ever since ATI's acquisition by AMD, ATI no longer supplies or supports drivers for Mac OS Classic nor Mac OS X. Mac OS X drivers can be downloaded from Apple's support website, while Mac OS Classic drivers can be obtained from 3rd party websites that host the older drivers for users to download. ATI used to provide a preference panel for use in Mac OS X called ATI Displays which can be used both with retail and OEM versions of its cards. Though it gives more control over advanced features of the graphics chipset, ATI Displays has limited functionality compared to their Catalyst for Windows product.ATI stopped support for Mac OS 9 after the Radeon R200 cards, making the last officially supported card the Radeon 9250. The Radeon R100 cards up to the Radeon 7200 can still be used with even older Mac OS versions such as System 7, although not all features are taken advantage of by the older operating system.
Linux
There are currently two drivers available: the open source Radeon driver, written mostly by the community based on specs published by AMD, and proprietary driver, written by AMD. As of 2012, the opensource driver is limited in power efficiency by absence of power management documentation and in performance by absence of VLIW compiler.For further information on Open Source drivers, see below.
Main article: fglrx
Initially, ATI did not produce Radeon drivers for Linux, instead giving hardware specifications and documentation to Direct Rendering Infrastructure (DRI) developers under various non-disclosure agreements.In mid 2004, however, ATI started to support Linux (XFree86, X.Org), hiring a new Linux driver team to produce fglrx. Their new proprietary Linux drivers, instead of being a port of the Windows Catalyst drivers, were based on the Linux drivers for the FireGL (the FireGL drivers worked with Radeons before, but didn't officially support them), a card geared towards graphics producers, not gamers; though the display drivers part is now based on the same sources as the ones from Windows Catalyst since version 4.x in late 2004. The proprietary Linux drivers could support R200 (Radeon 8500-9200, 9250) chips. For a better display driver, the drivers from a distribution's official repositories are recommended.
The frequency of driver updates increased in late 2004, releasing Linux drivers every two months, half as often as their Windows counterparts. Then since late 2005 this has been increased to monthly releases, inline with the Windows Catalyst releases.
In 2008, ATI changed its release cycles and driver versions; now referred to as Catalyst <year>.<month>, the driver package still includes an internal 8.xx.x driver revision, but it is now monthly, sharing a common code base with the Windows driver (starting with internal release 8.43). In 2009, the Catalyst driver officially dropped support for R500 and older chips, the FOSS driver being deemed stable and complete enough. The last driver release supporting older architectures is Catalyst 9.3.
FreeBSD
FreeBSD systems have the same open-source support for Radeon hardware as Linux, including 2D and 3D acceleration for Radeon R100, R200, and R300-series chipsets. The R300 support, as with Linux, remained experimental due to being reverse-engineered from ATI's proprietary drivers, but with the release of official documentation by AMD (following its buyout of ATI), all Radeon families up to R700 have at least 2D support in the FOSS drivers, with basic video acceleration and power management, and up to R500, have at least 'basic' (up to OpenGL 1.5 feature set, GLSL is still a work in progress) 3D acceleration. On R600/700, 3D is still very much experimental, and Evergreen support has barely started due to lack of documentation.ATI does not support its proprietary fglrx driver on FreeBSD, it has been partly ported by a third party as of January 2007. This is in contrast to its main rival, NVIDIA, which has periodically released its proprietary driver for FreeBSD since November 2002 (64-bit beta driver available as of December 3, 2009). In the meantime, the release is similar to Linux.
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