Santa Clara (CA) - The 7800 GT joins Nvidia's high-end 7800 graphics chip family and offers consumers a new choice that is positioned between the flagship 7800 GTX and the 6800 Ultra graphics processors. According to the manufacturer, the new GT is available in volume starting today.

After launching the 7800 GTX not quite two months ago, Nvidia introduced another performance graphics chip that will offer a performance level above a 6800 Ultra and below a 7800 GTX. Based on the same core as the GTX the GT comes with 20 instead of 24 pixel pipes, 7 instead of 8 vertex units, a 400 MHz core clock instead of 430 MHz and a memory speed of 500 MHz instead of 600 MHz. As the GTX, GT cards integrate 256 MByte GDDR3 memory.

Most important for users, however, is the fact that Nvidia continues its strategy to have new products available in volume and abandon paper launches of the past. GT cards will retail for about $450 or about $150 less than suggested retail of GTX cards. Several manufacturers, including Albatron, BFG, MSI, and XFX already announced GT cards and say there will be no shortage in supply.

While pricing of higher end graphics cards continues to climb and Nvidia says that it will charge for its chips "whatever the market will bear," volume availability already has shown its positive effect for the consumer. In contrast to the preceding GeForce 6 generation that saw price levels of about $1000 for 6800 Ultra cards due to short supply up until half a year after launch, 7800 GTX cards already have dropped from $600 to a range of between $550 and $500 within eight weeks, according PriceGrabber.com.

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