ATI has been making video cards for over 19 years, being founded in 1985. That's second only to Matrox in video card manufacturer's lifetimes. Consider that, in 1985, arcade games like Gauntlet and computers were 4.77 MHz beasties with 8088 microprocessors, floppy drives and 128 KB of RAM.
ATI has been hitting on all cylinders in recent years. 2002 saw the release of the first DirectX 9.0 compliant video card, the 9700 Pro by ATI. They followed up that release with cards called the 9500 Pro, the 9800 Pro, the 9800XT, and the 9600XT. Earlier this year, ATI announced the X800 series of cards. The X800 series consisted of the X800XT PE, the X800XT, and the X800 Pro and the X800SE. Unfortunately for ATI, the availability and numbers of these high-end cards have been extremely limited. Earlier this month ATI announced a new series of cards that look to improve availability and drive this series into new markets and performance paradigms. I'll also cover these cards in a preview. Unfortunately, I don't have any of these cards as of yet.
