ATI Radeon 7000 series

Radeon 7500 LE card (Creative Labs Branded)
Release date	April 1, 2000; 25 years ago (2000-04-01)
Codename	Rage 6C
Architecture	Radeon R100
Transistors	30M180 nm (R100) 30M180 nm (RV100)
Cards
Entry-level	7000, VE, LE
Mid-range	7200 DDR, 7200 SDR
High-end	VIVO, VIVO SE 7500 LE
Enthusiast	7500
API support
Direct3D	Direct3D 7.0
OpenGL	OpenGL 1.3 (T&L)[1][2]
History
Predecessor	Rage series
Successor	Radeon 8000 series
Support status
Unsupported

TheRadeon R100 is the first generation ofRadeon graphics chips fromATI Technologies. The line features3D acceleration based uponDirect3D 7.0 andOpenGL 1.3, and all but the entry-level versions offloading host geometry calculations to ahardware transform and lighting (T&L) engine, a major improvement in features and performance compared to the precedingRage design. The processors also include2D GUI acceleration,video acceleration, and multiple display outputs. "R100" refers to the development codename of the initially released GPU of the generation, various releases which were collectively known as the Radeon 7200. It is the basis for a variety of other succeeding products, including the entry-level RV100 (Radeon VE or Radeon 7000) and higher-performance refresh RV200 (Radeon 7500), the latter two having dual-monitor support.

The first-generationRadeon GPU was launched in 2000, and was initially code-namedRage 6 (laterR100), as the successor to ATI's agingRage 128 Pro which was unable to compete with theGeForce 256. The card also had been described asRadeon 256 in the months leading up to its launch, possibly to draw comparisons with the competing Nvidia card, although the moniker was dropped with the launch of the final product.

The R100 was built on a 180nm semiconductor manufacturing process from TSMC.^[3] Like the GeForce, the Radeon R100 featured a hardwaretransform and lighting (T&L) engine to perform geometry calculations, freeing up the host computer's CPU. In 3D rendering the processor can write 2 pixels to the framebuffer and sample 3 texture maps per pixel per clock. This is commonly referred to as a 2×3 configuration, or a dual-pipeline design with 3 TMUs per pipe. As for Radeon's competitors, theGeForce 256 is 4×1,GeForce2 GTS is 4×2 and3dfxVoodoo 5 5500 is a 2×1+2×1 SLI design. Unfortunately, the third texture unit did not get much use in games during the card's lifetime because software was not frequently performing more than dual texturing.

In terms of rendering, its "Pixel Tapestry" architecture allowed for Environment Mapped Bump Mapping (EMBM) and Dot Product (Dot3) Bump Mapping support, offering the most complete Bump Mapping support at the time along with the older Emboss method.^[4] Radeon also introduced a new memory bandwidth optimization and overdraw reduction technology calledHyperZ. It basically improves the overall efficiency of the 3D rendering processes. Consisting of 3 different functions, it allows the Radeon to perform very competitively compared to competing designs with higher fillrates and bandwidth on paper.

ATI produced a real-time demo for their new card, to showcase its new features. TheRadeon's Ark demo presents a science-fiction environment with heavy use of features such as multiple texture layers for image effects and detail. Among the effects are environment-mappedbump mapping, detail textures, glass reflections, mirrors, realistic water simulation, light maps,texture compression, planar reflective surfaces, and portal-based visibility.^[5]

In terms of performance, Radeon scores lower than the GeForce2 in most benchmarks, even with HyperZ activated. The performance difference was especially noticeable in16-bit color, where both the GeForce2 GTS and Voodoo 5 5500 were far ahead. However, the Radeon could close the gap and occasionally outperform its fastest competitor, the GeForce2 GTS, in32-bit color.

Aside from the new 3D hardware, Radeon also introduced per-pixel video-deinterlacing to ATI'sHDTV-capableMPEG-2 engine.

R100-based GPUs have forward-looking programmable shading capability in their pipelines; however, the chips are not flexible enough to support the MicrosoftDirect3D specification for Pixel Shader 1.1. Aforum post by an ATI engineer in 2001 clarified this:

...prior to the final release of DirectX 8.0, Microsoft decided that it was better to expose the RADEON's and GeForce{2}'s extended multitexture capabilities via the extensions to SetTextureStageState() instead of via the pixel shader interface. There are various practical technical reasons for this. Much of the same math that can be done with pixel shaders can be done via SetTextureStageState(), especially with the enhancements to SetTextureStageState() in DirectX 8.0. At the end of the day, this means that DirectX 8.0 exposes 99% of what the RADEON can do in its pixel pipe without adding the complexity of a "0.5" pixel shader interface.

Additionally, you have to understand that the phrase "shader" is an incredibly ambiguous graphics term. Basically, we hardware manufacturers started using the word "shader" a lot once we were able to do per-pixel dot products (i.e. the RADEON / GF generation of chips). Even earlier than that, "ATI_shader_op" was our multitexture OpenGL extension onRage 128 (which was replaced by the multivendor EXT_texture_env_combine extension).Quake III has ".shader" files it uses to describe how materials are lit. These are just a few examples of the use of the word shader in the game industry (nevermind the movie production industry which uses many different types of shaders, including those used byPixar'sRenderMan).

With the final release of DirectX 8.0, the term "shader" has become more crystallized in that it is actually used in the interface that developers use to write their programs rather than just general "industry lingo." In DirectX 8.0, there are two versions of pixel shaders: 1.0 and 1.1. (Future releases of DirectX will have 2.0 shaders, 3.0 shaders and so on.) Because of what I stated earlier, RADEON doesn't support either of the pixel shader versions in DirectX 8.0. Some of you have tweaked the registry and gotten the driver to export a 1.0 pixel shader version number to3DMark2001. This causes 3DMark2001 to think it can run certain tests. Surely, we shouldn't crash when you do this, but you are forcing the (leaked and/or unsupported) driver down a path it isn't intended to ever go. The chip doesn't support 1.0 or 1.1 pixel shaders, therefore you won't see correct rendering even if we don't crash. The fact that that registry key exists indicates that we did some experiments in the driver, not that we are half way done implementing pixel shaders on RADEON. DirectX 8.0's 1.0 and 1.1 pixel shaders are not supported by RADEON and never will be. The silicon just can't do what is required to support 1.0 or 1.1 shaders. This is also true of GeForce and GeForce2.

The first versions of the Radeon (R100) were the RadeonDDR, available in Spring 2000 with 32 MB or 64 MB configurations; the 64 MB card had a slightly faster clock speed and added VIVO (video-in video-out) capability. The core speed was 183Mhz and the 5.5 ns DDR SDRAM memory clock speed was 183 MHz DDR (366 MHz effective).The R100 introducedHyperZ, an early culling technology (maybe inspired by theTile Rendering present in St MicroelectronicsPowerVR chips) that became the way to go in graphic evolution and generation by generation rendering optimization, and can be considerend the first non tile rendering-based (and soDX7 compatible) card to use aZ-Buffer optimization.These cards were produced until mid-2001, when they were essentially replaced by the Radeon 7500 (RV200).

A slower and short-lived Radeon SDR (with 32 MBSDRAM memory) was added in mid-2000 to compete with theGeForce2 MX.

Also in 2000, anOEM-only Radeon LE 32MB DDR arrived. Compared to the regular Radeon DDR from ATI, the LE is produced by Athlon Micro from Radeon GPUs that did not meet spec and originally intended for the Asian OEM market. The card runs at a lower 143 MHz clock rate for both RAM and GPU, and its Hyper Z functionality has been disabled. Despite these handicaps, the Radeon LE was competitive with other contemporaries such as the GeForce 2 MX and Radeon SDR. Unlike its rivals, however, the LE has considerable performance potential, as is possible to enable HyperZ through a system registry alteration, plus there is considerable overclocking room. Later drivers do not differentiate the Radeon LE from other Radeon R100 cards and the HyperZ hardware is enabled by default, though there may be visual anomalies on cards with HyperZ hardware that is defective.^[6]

In 2001, a short-lived Radeon R100 with 64 MB SDR was released as the Radeon 7200. After this and all older R100 Radeon cards were discontinued, the R100 series was subsequently known as the Radeon 7200, in keeping with ATI's new naming scheme.

A budget variant of the R100 hardware was created and called the Radeon VE, later known as the Radeon 7000 in 2001 when ATI re-branded its products.

RV100 has only one pixel-pipeline, no hardwareT&L, a 64-bit memory bus, and noHyperZ. But it did addHydraVision dual-monitor support and integrated a secondRAMDAC into the core (forHydravision).

From the 3D performance standpoint, the Radeon VE did not fare well against the GeForce2 MX of the same era, though its multi-display support was clearly superior to the GeForce2 MX, however. TheMatrox G450 has the best dual-display support out of the GPUs but the slowest 3D performance.

RV100 was the basis for theMobility Radeon notebook solution.

The Radeon 7500 (RV200) is basically a die-shrink of the R100 in a new 150 nm manufacturing process. The increased density and various tweaks to the architecture allowed the GPU to function at higher clock speeds. It also allowed the card to operate with asynchronous clock operation, whereas the originalR100 was always clocked synchronously with the RAM. It was ATI's first Direct3D 7-compliant GPU to include dual-monitor support (Hydravision).^[7]

The Radeon 7500 launched in the second half of 2001 alongside theRadeon 8500 (R200). It used anaccelerated graphics port (AGP) 4x interface. Around the time that the Radeon 8500 and 7500 were announced, rival Nvidia released its GeForce 3 Ti500 and Ti200, the 8500 and Ti500 are direct competitors but the 7500 and Ti200 are not.

The desktop Radeon 7500 board frequently came clocked at 290 MHz core and 230 MHz RAM. It competed with the GeForce2 Ti and later on, the GeForce4 MX440.

The following table shows features ofAMD/ATI'sGPUs (see also:List of AMD graphics processing units).

Name ofGPU series	Wonder	Mach	3D Rage	Rage Pro	Rage 128	R100	R200	R300	R400	R500	R600	RV670	R700	Evergreen	Northern Islands		Southern Islands	Sea Islands	Volcanic Islands	Arctic Islands/Polaris	Vega	Navi 1x	Navi 2x	Navi 3x	Navi 4x
Released	1986	1991	Apr 1996	Mar 1997	Aug 1998	Apr 2000	Aug 2001	Sep 2002	May 2004	Oct 2005	May 2007	Nov 2007	Jun 2008	Sep 2009	Oct 2010	Dec 2010	Jan 2012	Sep 2013	Jun 2015	Jun 2016, Apr 2017, Aug 2019	Jun 2017, Feb 2019	Jul 2019	Nov 2020	Dec 2022	Feb 2025
Marketing Name	Wonder	Mach	3D Rage	Rage Pro	Rage 128	Radeon 7000	Radeon 8000	Radeon 9000	Radeon X700/X800	Radeon X1000	Radeon HD 2000	Radeon HD 3000	Radeon HD 4000	Radeon HD 5000	Radeon HD 6000		Radeon HD 7000	Radeon 200	Radeon 300	Radeon 400/500/600	Radeon RX Vega, Radeon VII	Radeon RX 5000	Radeon RX 6000	Radeon RX 7000	Radeon RX 9000
AMD support
Kind	2D		3D
Instruction set architecture	Not publicly known										TeraScale instruction set						GCN instruction set					RDNA instruction set
Microarchitecture	Not publicly known					GFX1		GFX2			TeraScale 1 (VLIW5) (GFX3)			TeraScale 2 (VLIW5) (GFX4)	TeraScale 2 (VLIW5) up to 68xx (GFX4)	TeraScale 3 (VLIW4) in 69xx[8][9] (GFX5)	GCN 1st gen (GFX6)	GCN 2nd gen (GFX7)	GCN 3rd gen (GFX8)	GCN 4th gen (GFX8)	GCN 5th gen (GFX9)	RDNA (GFX10.1)	RDNA 2 (GFX10.3)	RDNA 3 (GFX11)	RDNA 4 (GFX12)
Type	Fixed pipeline[a]						Programmable pixel & vertex pipelines				Unified shader model
Direct3D	—		5.0	6.0		7.0	8.1	9.0 11 (9_2)	9.0b 11 (9_2)	9.0c 11 (9_3)	10.0 11 (10_0)	10.1 11 (10_1)		11 (11_0)			11 (11_1) 12 (11_1)	11 (12_0) 12 (12_0)			11 (12_1) 12 (12_1)		11 (12_1) 12 (12_2)
Shader model	—						1.4	2.0+	2.0b	3.0	4.0	4.1		5.0			5.1	5.1 6.5			6.7				6.8
OpenGL	—			1.1	1.2	1.3		1.5[b][10]			3.3			4.6[11][c]
Vulkan	—															1.1[c][d]	1.3[12][e]		1.4[13]
OpenCL	—										Close to Metal		1.1 (not supported byMesa)	1.2+ (onLinux: 1.1+ (no Image support on Clover, with by Rusticl) with Mesa, 1.2+ on GCN 1.Gen)				2.0+ (Adrenalin driver onWin7+) (onLinux ROCm, Mesa 1.2+ (no Image support in Clover, but in Rusticl with Mesa, 2.0+ and 3.0 with AMD drivers or AMD ROCm), 5th gen: 2.2 win 10+ and Linux RocM 5.0+				2.2+ and 3.0 Windows 8.1+ and Linux ROCm 5.0+ (Mesa Rusticl 1.2+ and 3.0 (2.1+ and 2.2+ wip))[14][15][16]
HSA /ROCm	—																					?
Video decodingASIC	—										Avivo/UVD	UVD+	UVD 2	UVD 2.2	UVD 3		UVD 4	UVD 4.2	UVD 5.0 or6.0	UVD 6.3	UVD 7[17][f]	VCN 2.0[17][f]	VCN 3.0[18]	VCN 4.0	VCN 5.0
Video encodingASIC	—																VCE 1.0	VCE 2.0	VCE 3.0 or 3.1	VCE 3.4	VCE 4.0[17][f]
Fluid Motion[g]																								?
Power saving	?										PowerPlay				PowerTune		PowerTune &ZeroCore Power					?
TrueAudio	—																	Via dedicatedDSP		Via shaders
FreeSync	—																	1 2
HDCP[h]	—										?							1.4		2.2		2.3[19]
PlayReady[h]	—																			3.0		3.0
Supported displays[i]						1–2	2							2–6								?			4
Max.resolution	?													2–6 × 2560×1600			2–6 × 4096×2160 @ 30 Hz			2–6 × 5120×2880 @ 60 Hz	3 × 7680×4320 @ 60 Hz[20]	7680×4320 @ 60 HzPowerColor		7680x4320 @165 Hz	7680x4320
/drm/radeon[j]																			—
/drm/amdgpu[j]	—																	Optional[21]

• The R100 cards were originally launched without any numbering as Radeon SDR, DDR, LE and VE; these products were later "rebranded" to their names within the numbered naming scheme, when theRadeon 8000 series was introduced.

¹Pixel pipelines :Vertex shaders :Texture mapping units :Render output units

^A First number indicates cards with 32 MB of memory. Second number indicates cards with 64 MB of memory.
^B First number indicates OEM cards. Second number indicates Retail cards.

• All models are manufactured with a 180 nm fabrication process
• Based on the Radeon VE

¹Pixel pipelines :Vertex shaders :Texture mapping units :Render output units

These GPUs are either integrated into the mainboard or occupy aMobile PCI Express Module (MXM).

¹Vertex shaders :Pixel shaders :Texture mapping units :Render output units.

• NVIDIAGeForce 256 andGeForce2
• PowerVR Series 3
• 3dfxVoodoo 5
• S3Savage 2000

• Comparison of ATI Chipsets
• List of AMD graphics processing units

• "ATI Radeon 256 Preview" byAnand Lal Shimpi,AnandTech.com, April 25, 2000, retrieved January 17, 2006
• "ATI Radeon 32MB SDR" by Anand Lal Shimpi, AnandTech.com, October 13, 2000, retrieved January 17, 2006
• "ATI Radeon 64MB DDR" by Matthew Witheiler, AnandTech.com, July 17, 2000, retrieved January 17, 2006
• "Beyond3D 3D Tables" Beyond3D.com, retrieved January 17, 2006
• Vlachos, Alex.Radeon's Ark demo, 2000.

• techPowerUp! GPU Database

• ATI Technologies products
• Computer-related introductions in 2000
• Graphics cards

• CS1 German-language sources (de)
• Articles with short description
• Short description matches Wikidata