we already tried to make a positioning picture of videocards on chips ATI for autumn this year, last word, as always, remains for the manufacturer. the announcement of new graphic which will have the name of Radeon X1950 XTX will happen on August, 23rd, only two weeks remaing.ATI has decided to reduce the price of the existing videocards of family Radeon X1900. .
We have compared the resulted price:
* Radeon X1900 CrossFire Edition, 512 Mb GDDR-3: $500-> $375, € 529-> € 429;
* Radeon X1900 XTX, 512 Mb GDDR-3: $500-> $370, € 479-> € 399;
* Radeon X1900 XT, 512 Mb GDDR-3: $370-> $310, € 399-> € 339;
* Radeon X1900 GT, 256 Mb GDDR-3: $310-> $280, € 279-> € 209.
the price drop has made from 10 % up to 25 %. ATI partners Sapphire and PowerColor have corrected the prices. For example, Radeon X1900 GT Sapphire should be offered under the recommended price of $230 instead of $250.
The new prices should come later this week, and fresh parties of videocards will please buyers with the more attractive cost. As to terms of videocards availability the Radeon X1950 XTX will appear on sale only in September. As confirmed from some sources, they will coexist with videocards on the basis of chip R580 like the same Radeon X1900 XTX. To protect them from an internal competition the price policy will help. Expected retail price for the Radeon X1950 XTX is equal $449, the real prices will be noticeably above.
By the way, prospects of occurrence of the inexpensive videocards with GDDR-4 memory will not happen soon. It is new type of memory, manufacture volumes are insignificant, and the prices remain high. Reduction of prices for this memory new type will smoothly occur, as fast as manufacturers should recompence the investments into development manufacture of such memory type , that is why they are not interested in a sharp prices reduction at the moment .