What cards will we see?

Obviously, with each new generation there will be a big song and dance about the top end product that will end up accounting for a small (<5%) of the market. What interests most people is what other cards will become the offspring of these generations.

The R420 will be initially available in two flavours - a 12 pipeline solution clocked at 475/900mhz called the X800 PRO and a 16 pipeline solution clocked at 520/1120mhz called the X800 XT Platinum Edition. The core has scalability to produce a 8 or even 4 pipeline solution. Pricing should be around £299 and £399 respectively.

nVidia have chosen the name Geforce 6800 Ultra for the 16 pipe solution clocked in at 400/1100mhz but some partners (such as Gainward, PNY) will release a version with a 450mhz GPU speed. The Ultra should be between £350-400. There will also be a Geforce 6800 GT, which is still a 16 pipe solution, but clocked at 350/500mhz. This should be about £299. The Non-Ultra card will be a 12 pipe solution and is speculated to also run at 350/500mhz.

Of course all prices will depend on their partners. nVidia say there will be parts available mid-May. I personally think it will be a little longer than that, especially if you are going to be holding out for the 450mhz clocked version. ATi are also suggesting shipping in mid-May, but only time will tell.

Conclusion

From the testing we have already done and seen around the web, nVidia have made a huge leap in performance since NV30, correcting a lot of their previous mistakes. Similarly, ATi have managed to produce a card at double the speed of their previous flag-ship product. To me these are both astounding achievements. The performance between the cards is so close that I'm sure they will both sell very well, the deciding factor will more than likely be availability and price. In the very high-end, ATi has a clear advantage over nVidia with that of card size and power requirements, with the X800 XT Platinum Edition being a single slot solution using a lot less power than the dual-slot Geforce 6800 Ultra. nVidia fans will have to move down to the GT card in order to fit inside a SFF box.

Unfortunately, there are no conclusive answers we can give in this article. Until the cards are available to buy, no one will know.

But, a conclusive piece of advice is that you shouldn't be rushing out to buy the first card that becomes available, let the dust settle and see what comes about.

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