Does anyone know around when ATI plans to release there next big chip (R520?)? I've been toying around with the idea of buying a X800XL, but I can wait. Especially with the new architecture is right around the corner. Is the next suppose to be compatible with the next directx (whatever it is called).

Who cares where the ATI cards are? ATI's latest is losing the (actual selling)price/performance battle to Nvidia, so I figure this is just the eb and flow of video cards flowing back to Nvidia - so I switched from a 9600 to a 6600GT. This generation goes to Nvidia, so ATI can just gather themselves for another comeback when it's time for the next round of cards.

Available for $272.89 at CompUSAbusiness.com

http://www.compusabusiness.com/products/product_info.asp?product_co...

Well their plan is working. Each vaporware release gets posted as news on multiple tech sites.

There is an old saying that goes "There is no such thing as bad publicity"

I've seen X800XL's available in at MSRP on the shelves at CompUSA, Fry's and Microcenter in the last week or two. There doesn't appear to be a supply problem on that product anyway.

Well, ATI's gone big time now. If they can get big business from the OEMs, trust me they don't care about us (the 5% of the market). They are probably raking in mad dough too.

It's just how things work. Either the OEMs are buying all ATI can produce even with production going well, or ATI is having problems with production and can't keep up at all.

very strange moves on the part of ATI, it will be difficult for them to earn back people's trust with these sorts of "product launches"

at lease nvidia, after releasing a POS line of cards was able to rectify that with simply coming out with a good offering. i suppose only time will tell if ATI's next batch of cards will cone out at and be priced at what they initially claim.

i would be surprised if many people waited to buy for them though after this mess.

I received my X800 XL PCI-Express 256Meg video card yesterday. I pre-ordered from ATI's online store on January 12th. I only paid $221 total. I used the 20% off code stacked with a 10% off code.

Now all I need to do is build the rest of my new system.

--|BRiT|

128MB X800 cards indeed seem to exist. MSI has both a 128MB (with DDR ram) and a 256MB (with GDDR3 ram) version.
Well at least it exists on their webpage, http://www.msi.com.tw/program/search/ser/SerConProRes.php?pro=2&chp... and quite a lot of european shops have it listed already. Expected availability seems to be march 21 for pretty much all shops. Price is almost as high as the 256MB version though for now (so even considering graphic cards are cheaper in the US, that would still be more like 250USD rather than that 200USD).
So it's not quite here yet, but it's coming :-).

Could it be that the demand for ATI graphic chips is the result of longhorn using graphics cards to display the desktop instead of the 2D accelerator?

the wait drove me to spend 120 over what i planned... now i'm back in the nvidia camp (mostly due to sm3.0)

My plan was to skip this generation and wait for R520 and its derivatives, but I'm getting the feeling it'll launch in June and hit shelves in January...

Given that ATI's financial results remain strong, I have to conclude that much of their fab capacity is going towards chips that end up in OEM machines, not in the retail channel. I haven't looked at all the big OEMs but Dell seems to have no problem offering the X850 XT PE (which of course is not the XL) and X300 on select systems.

I saw a good supply of ATI branded X800 XL's at the Fry's in Anaheim yesterday. Price = $299.00