Yep, Fudzilla says only 229!

Thats insane! Its supposed to be 1.25x faster than the current 9800GTX...which means that a 230 dollar card will be faster than THAT 330 dollar card..unbelievable if its true...i think if NVIDIA's new GT200 line is very expensive (aka. 350+ for 9900gts and 400+ for 9900gtx) then more people will buy the cheaper ATI cards...if they turn out to be such good performers as the current speculations leads us on..

Yea, I think the number is off, and that'll be the price of the HD4850, not the HD4870.

We'll see, but that's my prediction.

i wonder if i could crossfire my hd3870 with new 4870, cause for 229 it would be a huge upgrade.

According to the "reports" out there the 4870 is going to be $229 and the 4850's under $200. History says they'll be selling in the $279 - $229 range respectively in etail upon release. If demand is high enough, possibly even $299 for the 4870.

that would be very great
but i think its not a good marketing strategy move IMO

It it is the right number though, people would flock to it like mad .

And those 55nm chips reduce the cost to make em, plus with AMD outsourcing to TSMC, It'll make prices cheaper here, and increase profits.

i love to watch there competition even if i cant offered GFX card every couple of monthes
i hope AMD cpu side return with a good products as will

I can't see it would make sense to sell them so cheap at launch. Why $229 when they could probably unload every one they could make for $299.

If it's really $229, we are in for less performance than we hope for.

i am concerning of this like you but who knows really
beside there no AMD products right know in this price tag(200- 300+ $) when the 3800 series become cheaper
i think this is the good spot for them

Yeah, who knows. I'm all for those prices. Like TGGA said, I don't see their flagship being released for $229. I guess an X2 would take that spot. We'll soon find out. Maybe AMD knows the GTX 280 crushes their card.

ATI might just be going for volume of sales to make a profit instead of the wallet raping method like Nvidia.

^ Yeah, but that's usually been their strategy when they can't compete performance wise. I guess it could be a strategy for capturing back market share, but one would think AMD needs to first and foremost bring in some cash, and there is only so many they can get on the shelves around launch.

Why are they outsourcing to TSMC?
Can't USA make their own chips?

Yeah, but starting at $229 instead of a figure like $299 doesn't give you much to move price wise over the product lifecycle, so it would be best even from a marketing perspective to launch @ $299, and even within weeks cut to $249 and then you maximize profit from the 'must have' early adopters, and then give the hangers one that 'price drop' to get them to loosen their wallets.

Launch at $229, and then what? $30 price drop? OOOhhh AAAhh suddenly I'm weak in the knees got buy because they dropped it less than the price of a game.

If we're talking about MSRP then $229 is ridiculous, if we're talking about "found in e-tail shortly after launch" then it makes alot of sense.

Not profit maximizing, and if the performance figures are even just 25/50% boost over HD3870, the $229 figure is extremely low. And IMO the only reason to do that would be insanely good yields and the determination to explode market share by detroying the value of all other products including their own, which still makes no sense to me.

$229 for something will all the new features, performance at a GF8800GTS level, and lower power consumption, who wouldn't buy that, and how wouldn't you have a shortage?

I don't care if the GT200 is 50% faster ontop of the HD4870, if it's around twice the price, then there'd be value issue for most, especially since the sweet spot is not the $350-450 card, but the $175-250 "performance' range according to Peddie research.

If they can make a ton of the cards, they'll make a mint, but if they have even a slight shortage, then it's an indication that the MSRP sould've been higher at launch. And really right now is notthe time to try and get people to pay a significant premium for 1GB over 512MB of memory so much as make a a slightly slower core& memory GDDR3 512MB cost $229 and a faster GDDR5 512MB-1GB cost $299, that makes more sense. Launching an XT for $229 compresses all your other models price around and especially below it. And where do you now price your old HD3Ks? At $100/75/50 for the 3800/3600/3400?

Just doesn't make sense to me at all... except like I said, you have awesome yields/cost and you can dump a shedload of them on the market.

Why does it matter?

Non of the current discrete GPU makers have their own FABs, FABs are expensive and the GPUs switch processes very quickly. Better to have TSMC give them access to 65,55,45,40nm in short order, then spend all this time and money to build a 65nm fab only to find out TSMC is offering your competition the ability to make parts @ 45nm, and then the best you can do is optically shrink to 55, when they can go to 40.

It makes sense for intel to make their own fabs, because when they are done, they can move production to the bazillion other products they make as the largest chip maker in the world (by almost double #2, and more than tripl #3). And for intel with their move to SSDs and more NAND production it's only going to give them more outlets for their capacity. While AMD only have some spin of opportunities like chipsets, media/TV chips, and a few other small items (likely all combined wouldn't require the capacity of a single fab), and nVidia even less so. If cellphone chips would be fine with larger processes then both would have something to use dedicated fabs for, but even there tiny is king.

Think about this, if it weren't for the 30-40 customers TSMC has THEY wouldn't be able to keep their FAB move about a year behind intel, so how is the small lineups of the like of AMD, nVidia and VIA supposed to sustain a fab on their own.

I was hopinh the AMD+ATi merger would give ATi the opportunity to use excess AMD capacity, but they moved so slowly on the CPU front that opportunity came and went before they knew what to do.

Even intel won't be doing most of their production here shortly, moving alot of it overseas.

WHAT ???
Get me two ASAP please!!!

I think if it is true it will be the most wise decision a company ever made
Many are waiting the new generation from both ATI and nVidia
If they started with 400-500$ price many will wait to see what nVidia
will come up with, and after the release of nVidia cards sure price will drop
But many will buy from nVidiaAnd Ati will loose them
At a price of 200-230$ many will say what nVidia is going to offer ??
A card with 10-15% more fast for at least 200$ more ?
I don't need it !!!!!
Let me get two in Cross Fire for the same price
And Iam one of them
There will be no share of the market at all for nVidia
It will be Kock Out
Come on ATI, do it and do not disappoint us
We are waiting your (200$)4870

I'm going to agree with everyting thegreatgrapeape has said.

As far ast this is concerned: When Crossfire works at the speed of the slowest card, why would you want to spend the extra $$$ on the 48XX series of cards? Maybe if you planned on replacing the 38XX series with the new Sh@#.

Spend the $169 on the Sapphire 3870 now and save some grief.

I think thats the eventyal target. After release, and capable of competing at that price. Like was said, I dont think we will se those prices anytime soon, if ever. This card should outdo the GTS512, so it has to be priced accordingly. Better, but by not that much, and wants everyone to jump ship. Head to head, dollar for dollar, I think thats what this pricing is saying, keeping it within its nearest competitor. Ive been saying about 10%+ fps over the Ultra, so maybe 15%+ over the GTS512. It has to do good against that card. I think itll handle the 9800GTX easily, tho the 280 (aka G200) is going to be a monster, with a monstrous price, at least 600 USD, but we will see. I think itll be more like 300 USD at first then come down to compete with whatever nVidia has in that range