ATI Cuts Graphics Chip Prices

It's been guessed for a while that Nvidia will be launching two new chip families, the GeForce 7900 GTX and 7900 GT, along with the GeForce 7600 GT and GS at this week's CeBit exhibition in Hannover, Germany. Those rumors have been confirmed yesterday with the first indication of retail pricing.

The MSI GeForce 7900 GTX 512MB is available for £393.98 including vat. To make the deal even better, all orders above £250 will include free delivery this weekend.

This move already has made rival ATI lower its prices. Now the R520-based X1800 XT 256B costs just $299 for OEM cards, which represents an extremely modest amount, considering the cards capabilities.

In comparison, Dabs sell the MSI 7800 GTX 256MB for £329.00. Of course, the extra 256MB of 1.1ns Samsung GDDR3 memory doesn't come cheap - a GeForce 7800 GTX 512MB from ASUS costs a whopping £505 including vat. Next to that, £400 for a 7900 with half a gig is a bargain.

In response to this, ATI are rumored to be preparing a "massive price slash" according to some sources. We have had no official confirmation of this, but we will bring you the final pricing as soon as it is made available.