ATI to Match NVIDIA’s GeForce 7800 Volume Launch - Almost

A long series of paper launches in the graphic chip industry came to an end when Nvidia shipped its product generation in volume on the day of announcement. ATI is likely to follow suit, Tom’s Hardware Guide has learned: There will be plenty of entry-level and mainstream R5xx cards available in stores at launch. The flagship will follow within a few weeks.

Forget about shelling out premiums for the newest graphic chip generation. Nvidia’s GeForce 6 and ATI’s Radeon X8xx families could have been the last graphic chips that sold for almost twice the suggested retail price on the open market because of their limited availability. Sources told Tom’s Hardware Guide that most versions of the upcoming R520 chips are likely to be available in "high" volume at launch.