14 DAY TRIAL // It seems that NVIDIA's impending release of its first mainstream 500 series graphics card led to some price changes on AMD's part, as far as its latest Radeon controllers are concerned.
As consumers know, NVIDIA will launch the GeForce GTX 560 Ti in a matter of hours.
This board is the Santa Clara, California-based company's first 500 series mainstream controller, although, true enough, it will only be accessible to the so-called performance segment (the higher level of the mid-end).
Since leaks have, so far, painted the adapter in a promising light, there is a high chance that the newcomer will clearly outdo AMD's Radeon HD 6800 and 6900 series, or at least challenge the might of the stronger ones enough to no longer justify the prices.
That said, reports have emerged, stating that the aforementioned Radeon series have had their manufacturer suggested retail prices cut down somewhat.
Already versions of the HD 6950 and HD 6850 with 1 GB GDDR5 VRAM instead of 2 GB were delivered by Sapphire, Gigabyte, HIS and others.
Now, the AMD Radeon HD 6950 2 GB model has dropped to USD$289 ($269 soft), while the European price is said to be of 289.99 Euro.
Likewise, the 1 GB HD 6950 has become less pricey, selling for USD$259, which corresponds to the sum of 225.00 Euro.
Furthermore, the 6870 has been given the price of USD$219, 239.99 Euro in Europe.
For those in need of a reminder, the Radeon HD 6900 and 6800 cards are AMD's latest set of mainstream and high-end video boards.
They all support the DirectX 11 graphics technology, as well as features like MLAA and EQAA, plus the Eyefinity technology, which enables multi-display scenarios.
As before, the CrossFireX technology will let owners set up multi-GPU configurations, something that should be much easier now that individual models are easier on the finances.