ATI needs to sell a LOT of cards SOON (and NOT low end integrated GPUs either). They have been struggling to compete with nVidia for the last ~year and one-half (or longer) as their financial results demonstrate.
They NEED to have the best performing parts at attrative price points to get "momentum" back in their favor.
The "GPU design" industry is brutal (e.g., Intel couldn't keep up/compete so they essentially bailed out of the sector) and to be quite frank, theirs only room for 1 firm to do well at any give time (i.e.., the 1 firm does well at the expense of the other firm).
So if ATI or nVidia is the "second place" firm for more than ~2 or 3 years, they lose money so rapidly that it jeopardizes their financial future.
In closing...if ATI chooses to sell R590 based cards (e.g., same line as the X1900) on the cheap with confusing model numbers (e.g., X1800GTO), they may have a VERY good reason to do so (i.e., survival)
.
They NEED to have the best performing parts at attrative price points to get "momentum" back in their favor.
The "GPU design" industry is brutal (e.g., Intel couldn't keep up/compete so they essentially bailed out of the sector) and to be quite frank, theirs only room for 1 firm to do well at any give time (i.e.., the 1 firm does well at the expense of the other firm).
So if ATI or nVidia is the "second place" firm for more than ~2 or 3 years, they lose money so rapidly that it jeopardizes their financial future.
In closing...if ATI chooses to sell R590 based cards (e.g., same line as the X1900) on the cheap with confusing model numbers (e.g., X1800GTO), they may have a VERY good reason to do so (i.e., survival)
.
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