14 DAY TRIAL // Sunnyvale, California-based AMD has rescheduled the launch of its new graphics card flagship, the RV790-based Radeon HD4890. Initially expected on April 9, the new card is now slated for availability a week earlier, namely on the 2nd of April. This will allow AMD to retrieve some of the market share it has lost to its competitor NVIDIA, in the US$250 price segment, especially since NVIDIA’s new card, the GTX 275, will not become available until later in April.
According to a recent news-article on vr-zone, the chip maker has apparently decided to launch its new Radeon graphics card a bit earlier, a decision that will likely give the company a chance to catch up with NVIDIA in the high-performance market segment. The new card, which has been built on the 55nm RV790 graphics processing unit, is said to provide computer users with an alternative to NVIDIA's current GTX 280 graphics accelerator. The new GPU is expected to deliver a performance boost of approximately 6% over that of the current Radeon HD4870.
AMD partners in Taiwan and Hong Kong are said to have already started selling the cards for about HK$2280 (US$297) and HK$1999 (US$258). However, these prices are a bit higher than what was originally expected for the Radeon HD 4890, which was supposed to sell for about US$250, but they should be lowered once AMD officially announces the card.
As far as NVIDIA is concerned, the GTX 275 will not be ready for launch so early in April, especially since there are reports according to which there's still some work to be done on the card. However, NVIDIA is still on to release the GTX 275 later in April, giving AMD's Radeon HD 4890 a run for its money.