The new mid range?

[Applecrusher]

Well with the release of the X800 pro and that other Nvidia thing I was wondering what the mid range cards were going to be and when they will be released as some of us arn't lucky enough to have a pile of gold sitting there waiting for the new graphics cards... ???

[Howard]

I'd imagine the 9800Pros and XTs will turn into the mid-range cards (

[Jonty]

Hi Applecrusher

There is talk that the X600, which I believe to be ATI's mainstream card, will be announced some time soon. nVidia's mainstream variants haven't been announced, but given the apparent changes to their high-end cards, I'd guess they'll announce after ATI.

Of course you'll still be able to pickup today's cards (Radeon 9800s, GeForceFX 5900s etc.) at reduced prices, but how they will compare to the 'next-gen' mainstream cards is as yet unknown.

Kind Regards

[Kezzer]

I heard they were getting rid of the 9800 series.

[malfunction]

I heard they were getting rid of the 9800 series.

Me too.

AFAIK the X600 is going to be a 0.11 micron version of the 9600 with GDDR3 (so potentially higher clocks for both core and memory but still only 4 pipelines and a 128-bit bus). There's also going to be either a X800 non-pro or a X800SE which will only have 8 pipelines (so it's basically a 9800 built on a 0.13 process)... Personally I'm quite excited by the prospect of a X800 non-pro / SE as long as it is paired with decent RAM and keeps the 256-bit memory bus - basically if it is / does then it ought to be a higher clocking, cooler running 9800 which is all good IMO. *IF* some of them can be soft modded / BIOS flashed to a X800 Pro or even XT then woo-hoo baby, etc, etc...