AMD Ships Radeon 4850 Graphics Card
Exclusive - Taipei (Taiwan) - AMD’s graphics team has put the finishing touches at its new GPU generation and actually has begun shipping the new 4850 card to OEM partners and retailers: The new Radeon series will sell for prices between $199 and $499.
According to information we came across in Taiwan, AMD/ATI is gunning for a sizeable launch of the new product generation, with Radeon 4850 512 MB boards leading the charge. However, the exact price has not been set yet, even if it is certain that the GDDR3 512 MB version (codenamed Makedon) will debut in a range between $179 and $219. If you ask us, we believe that the board be priced exactly at $199 (US, CAN) as well as 199 Euro.
We were told that AMD/ATI will decide on final pricing during the Computex tradeshow (which is scheduled to open on Monday) in order to have all the puzzle pieces for a June 18 in place. It certainly does not look like a paper launch at this time and the June 18 is an as-of-now date, since the company could revise is launch schedule to avoid a launch right on the heels of Nvidia’s new high-end parts.
The good news here is certainly that ATI is aiming for $199, sub-$299 and $499 price targets. However, the release dates of the faster SKUs may be problematic: Nvidia is working on new mainstream chips as well, which will debut in Q3 of this year, our sources indicate.
The Radeon 4870 512 MB is expected to ship in volume sometime this summer. This will be the first graphics card in the market to integrate GDDR5 memory. However, the 4870 X2, will face stiff competition from the GeForce GTX 260: Radeon 4870 X2 cards will sell for $499, while the GeForce GTX 260 is likely to debut at $449.
It is unclear whether ATI’s 480 and 960 shader units will be enough to capture market share in the targeted price ranges. All we know is that the game is on and the winner is yet to be decided. According to ATI partners, Nvidia still has a big advantage in its logistics division, both in sales and PR.
"the 4870 X2 will face stiff competition from the geforce gtx 260."
omfg... the gtx 280 should completely rape it then Now i'm psyched
Pricing and power efficiency are going to be right up there in my purchase decision along with performance.
so elaborate please
This is completely false. They are talking about competition based on price, not by performance. No one has any idea yet what the performance competition is going to be. I would hope the GTX280 would win, That chip has the same die size on a wafer as 3-4 R770 chips and will use more power than the 2 chip solution. If it doesn't win though.... bad news for nvidia.
how is the GTX260 Nvidia's low end card? It would be better to be placed in the upper-mid category, Considering that it is relatively close to the price of 2 of ATI's high end GPUs. IMO from what has been seen with the vantage scores (not proven) is that the GTX-280 is not much faster than the GTX-260.
its a benchmark for cards... ati almost always does better in 3dmark and even if you score terribly... that doesn't mean that your system sucks or is only 20% better than a rival card when infact it could be much greater... its just that rival card might be better suited to the tests in the benchmark
you must be really smart
Did I miss the memo where a card estimated to debut at $449 is "low end"?
Like Tommy2005, I'm mostly waiting for these new cards to launch so I can upgrade to an even cheaper current-gen card. I look forward to these new launches to also take advantage of whatever passes as mid-range these days. The $200 3850-512mb, when it debuted, was faster and less power consuming than my $400 x1950xtx I bought a year earlier (and still use... still a great card that gets me everywhere I want to go... but I really need to get around to getting my GF an upgrade from her 7800GT
I figure this stage in the war is going to be more of the same. The highest end nVidia will ultimately have the fastest overall card, like they already do, so what?
Once the nVidia card ships, I figure ATI/AMD will drop the price as per usual.
Can't wait for the 4870 X2's!