I bought an X800XT PE direct from ATI at the end of July and I received it exactly a month later, at the end of August. The card does exist!

Bored of waiting for an X850, bought a 6600GT to fill the gap temporarily: nVidia 1, ATi 0.

Decided with the 6600GT that the high end parts are a waste of money anyway so they've got 6 months to get me a goddamn X800XL and if they can't do that then I'm going to <edited for family viewing> :P

I got my X800XT PE about a month and a half ago...whenever i bought my dell xps gen 3 :P

Both X800's and 6800GT's and Ultras were initially quite hard to get here (Prague, Czech Republic) but I have just bought a Sapphire X800XT last week and they had it on stock for a while. What I mean is a retailer which sells them about 200m from where I live. They have the Platinum Edition on stock too:

http://www.alzasoft.cz/Default.asp?CatID=18842862&PgID=2&MRK=1479

The high end 6800's are a little harder to get and they are more expensive, but it's not impossible, some are on stock too. So if anybody complains about the availability, just ask me and I'll go and buy it tomorrow morning for you...

I bought my X800 XT in June from a CompUSA in Texas that had like 200 of them, I paid retail (499.00) and got free shipping by ordering through corporate from a # I saw at HardOCP.. I didn't realize at the time how lucky I was, I had pre-ordered at Gateway but canceled after I got an Email from them pushing the date way out. Had that not gone through I probably would have ended up with a 6800GT although back in June the 6800GT wasn't even in the running because it really hadn't started to ship, was still an unknown quantity, Nvidias post GF4 track record hadn't exactly been sterling and I had been super happy with my 9700 Pro in my main machine and 9700 AIW in my HTPC. I have been pretty much blown away with the XT PE's performance in my P4 3.2 @3.6 main rig, still if I had not lucked out with the XT PE and ended up with a 6800GT I am sure I would be almost as happy. I am really shocked that the XT PE availability hasn't gotten much better in all this time.

If you feel you must stick with ATI I believe there are 3 people now who post in the 3DGPU forums that went the modded X800 Pro Vivo to XT PE route with great results.

well... I'm not against the reviewers for have the privelege to be the first to to grab a hold of the best products... your reviews are quite impressive... i'm just stating the fact the manufacturers should be able to at least deliver a product that they are bragging to be the best... the consumers should also be able to experience the fact that they blew away $500 or more for the best product.... in this case... holy grail of video cards... a company couldn't technically declare itself to be number 1 just because it manufactured or produced 10 or 20 pieces of the most mind blowing video card money can buy... I simply believe that the best manufacturer is considered to be able to deliver products... like which manufacturer sold the most number of high-end video card?! NVidia of ATI?!? that remains a question... since their high-end cards are so rare to almost non-existant....

I ordered my X800XT PE on June 1, got it at the end of August.

X800 XT PE's sold by ATI's retail partners (such as Power Color) are available. As X800 XT PE's are in the retail channel we can safely say that the PE is not vapourware. We can say, however, that they are in very limited supply.

Maybe reviewers should stop posting results from the X800 XT PE then? Honestly, if a card can't be bought, why are reviewers demonstrating it's prowess?

Same for the 6800's on kerosine,they don't excist.

has anyone ever think its just a hoax... those X800XT PE that came out must be some overclocked versions and that X800XT PE are just for bragging rights that their GPU is faster?!? theoretically?!? marketing strategy perhaps?!?

I gave up back in October and am now just content to keep running my 9800Pro until next years upgrade.

It doesn't run Doom all that great but honestly, I haven't played it since I beat the game.

I also didn't buy Half Life 2 because Valve or Vivendi expects me to pay $25 more for a DVD version. Like hell if I'm going to install 5-6 CD's. And why should I trust my credit card to Steam when these guys were hacked last year?

It's kind of sad, no top of the line vid card for the first time in as far as I can remember AND I missed a major titles launch date. I guess I may have to relinquish any geek status I may have.

Several friends have gotten the same runaround from ATI since the beginning of the tenuous availability of the PE cards in the summer, and back in August I broke down and bought one off eBay (at a greatly inflated rate, of course). It stinks to read game benches like those of Half-Life 2, where this top-of-the-line card is shown to be such a winner, but then be unable to purchase said card. While speculation abounds as to the exact reason(s) for the shortage, in the end it doesn't matter to the consumer ready to drop $500 for a video card -- they just want it. Many people I know rabidly sought a PE card, but decided to bite the bullet and got a 6800 Ultra instead.

I gave up waiting for the ATI version of the X800XT PE and purchased a GeCube X800Pro VIVO. I did the mod @XT PE with success.

Yeah! Cancel the orders and let's go get Geforce 6800 Ultra Editions!!

Oh...wait...

I had a similar experience to Snikrep. I placed an order with Gateway, only to have it eventually cancelled. I then placed an order with Dell, again to have it eventually cancelled. I missed the CDW deal completely.

I finally wound up with the BFGTech 6800GT OC. I got a great overclock on it, and it's smooth as glass. Even more than Doom 3 or Half Life 2, I'm amazed at the IQ in Farcry. I played the whole game again, just to look at the "pretties".

I've been a loyal ATI person since the problems with the original GeForce cards and the first Athlon chipsets. I switched to a Radeon 8500 and never looked back. I just retired my Radeon 9700 Pro for this 6800 and I'm very happy with the performance. I'm not happy with the experience of trying to get my hands on the ATI card, however.

I sure hope they get their supply chain issues worked out. This is definitely a black eye on ATI as far as I'm concerned.

Damage,

It's not a complaint and i'm sorry if you took it that way - just a suggestion from a disgruntled consumer who's equally tired of Ultra OCs and XT PEs distorting the graphs.

A work friend had his on order for a long time. He finally canceled his order about 3 weeks ago and got a regular XT.

Another friend gave an XT PE away in a drawing... tried to anyway. i think he had one on order and somehow found some place that atually had one. he had to pay a lot more than he expected, but there was nothing he could do since he promised to give away a PE.

ATI is too busy with the Xbox Next. :) Cool with me since I am console gaming much more since I decided to get out of the PC Hardware Upgrade Ratrace! (tm)

Yeah, I'm surprised this story hasn't gotten more coverage... it's been a freaking nightmare.

My story started back in May or June... somebody posted on Anandtech about how Gateway was selling the X800XT for $430 and they supposedly had it IN STOCK. I just about died when I saw that, went and ordered one from Gateway and confirmed that they did have it in stock. Well of course it was too good to be true, they pulled the deal from the internet, but kept the orders out there and said they would be receiving some SOON. I figured for the price I could wait a while, so I did.

This went on for a couple weeks, then I find out my order was automatically cancelled in some confusion (so were a lot of other people's), but they replace the order for even a CHEAPER price... $390 with free overnight shipping (yeah, I was ecstatic). I figure I can wait around. Well July roles around, then August. I finally start getting desperate, CompUSA had a messup a month previous where a shop in Texas sold all their preorder cards (X800XT's) to people who called up the store... this happened again in August and I jumped on the deal, called up the guy, placed the order. Of course, come to find out the next day that there was a computer glitch and *nobody* would be getting any cards from him.

By this time I'm getting kind of bummed, then we go and place a similar order from CDW, they supposedly will get stock as soon as anybody does. We keep hearing different ship dates from them as well (next week, no next week, no next week.... and so on). I also ordered a X800XT from Zipzoomfly (it was "in stock") only to find out the next day that they ALSO had a stock glitch and my order was cancelled (yeah, &$*#$).

By this time it's getting to the end of August, my order from Gateway is finally cancelled when they "discontinue" the product (I don't know how they discontinue something they never carried, but whatever). The CDW order is cancelled (they also said they will NEVER get a X800XT in). All the time I'm communicating this stuff on Rage3D and the idiot moderators over there keep closing threads talking about the cancellations.... for some reason somebody high up said they didn't want this sort of talk to happen, and so when we're trying to talk about, "My order was cancelled 3 places and they ALL said the card is discontinued" they would respond back, "No, it will be here next month, my inside sources told me that" (yeah, well your inside sources SUCK).

I also tried to get the 16 pipeline Pro working but never really had any luck with that.

The story finally ends when I go to Fry's one day and see a white box 6800 Ultra (used) for $475. I jump on the deal (I can return it at least), bring it home... I get fantastic overclocks with the card and I'm done with this stupid game... ATI royally screwed up and I can't believe they haven't gotten hammered for it. At least come out with a press statement explaining everything, and tell us when availability will REALLY pick up instead of all the BS answers.

And I saw people try from Dell around mid-August... nobody got anything from them, that was another false alarm. And if you ever go to Rage3D and talk about this stuff you'll always get a couple freaks who managed to get the card on preorder from Best Buy or CompUSA (it seems ATI has made at least 200 cards so that there's always one nut out there who can respond, "What do you mean the card is vaporware, I guess my X800XT sitting in front of me is vaporware!").

I think the big deal with ATI is the fact that a handful of retailers all had mysterious ‘glitches’ regarding the card. The entire debacle is laughable.

Let me say it again: 6800UE and X800XT PE= Reviewware.

Forget about ether card and just get a 6800U/X800XT which you actually can find and order.

My cousin got his from Dell, I dont know if they still have them. But he said you have to check regularly to get one. They dont pop up often.

I gave up waiting for the ATI version of the X800XT PE and purchased a PowerColour X800XT PE. This was in August. My retailer has always listed the ATI product as "Market Shortage, Accepting Preorders". The PowerColour product appears as an ATI branded card in Device Manager and in the ATI Cat software. PowerColour uses the ATI drivers (their driver page has a link to ATI's site.)

Yeah, that's ridiculous, especially to take orders and not fill them for >4 months. Meanwihile, the technology gets older and you can't enjoy it's newness!

Dell had them for a while. I bought one for my Dad. Got it to.

I have noticed Dell has a Good Dell with ATi. They carry some limited items at first.