The past couple of days (and weeks) have proved to be extremely interesting, as far as graphics cards were concerned. First of all, we've seen NVIDIA launch its GT200 architecture (the GeForce GTX 280 and GeForce GTX 260 models), then ATI hit back with the HD 4850 and HD 4870 units. Last (but certainly not least), NVIDIA has also announced the imminent availability (July) of its GeForce 9800GTX+ card, a higher-clocked 9800 GTX and a direct competitor to the HD 4800 series.

However, it would seem that ATI's not about to simply give up without a serious fight. According to some insider info leaked to TGDaily, the graphics solution manufacturer has removed all overclocking restrictions for its HD 4850 cards, which translates into very good news for its add-in board (AIB) partners.

Practically, by allowing them to overclock the GPUs, ATI has opened the door for a whole new range of HD 4850 cards, each providing higher specs than the "stock" versions. Moreover, the number of models will also be a lot higher, since manufacturers will be able to tweak various particular features and aspects of the card.

However, as a general rule, the same source mentioned earlier has revealed that the overclocking options most likely to find their way into the new cards are a 50 MHz increase in the clock speed as well as the implementation of 5-6 GB/s of bandwidth for the GDDR3 memory. Quite obviously, this boost in the performance levels will also bring about a change of the cooling system.

And the best part is, there are already some integrators (the likes of HIS, Sapphire and Diamond) that have expressed (more or less officially, of course) their intentions of producing the overclocked cards. So, since it seems that we're really going to witness an all-out battle when this second wave of HD 4850 hits the shelves, hold on to your money: you might really need it.