ATI will launch its RV670PRO in a few weeks' time and this second fastest 55 nanometer card from ATI will end up incredibly affordable. It will launch at US$179, if not even less, and Nvidia currently doesn’t have a product to compete in this product space. Geforce 8800 GT 256MB will be great, but it won’t launch until Nvidia overcomes the huge demand for 8800 GT 512MB.

The RV670PRO, the card that might end up branded as HD 3850 256MB, will offer decent performance but it will be widely available. It won’t be hot, but it is great for Video decoding; and most importantly, it will be reasonably priced and easily available to consumers. We are very sure that it will end up slower than the 8800 GT 256MB card; there is no doubt about it.

RV670XT will be out, but DAAMIT plans to focus more on the volume production of PRO so expect to see more of these than RV670XT in retail pre-holiday sales. This card will certainly help ATI to gain some market share back.