ATI's Radeon 9800XT, Half Life bundle to be launched in Alcatraz
ATI'S long awaited card that is expected to take the performance lead in the increasingly bitter graphics battle, is to be launched in Alcatraz, the former prison just a wave away from freedom-loving city San Francisco.
The cards are close to being finalised, with ATI boffins hoping the clock speeds will be a little less than 415MHz for the core, and 730MHz for the memory.
We're not certain that these are the final numbers, but you probably already know that the 30th is also the day when Valve will introduce its highly anticipated Half Life 2 with its now famous benchmarks.
As we said previously, all Radeon 9800XT cards will be shipped with this card and this is likely to cost ATI some serious money -- some are suggesting as much as $8 million, although we still wait to get solid proof about the Nvidia-ATI auction.
The card will cost $399 and will be in the shops two to three weeks after the Alcatraz announcement in serious quantities.
The European launch party will take place in Munich - not so exotic as Alcatraz -- but the place where ATI has its nice offices and as far as we know there will be no Paris and London based parallel events.
As we've said elsewhere, the interesting thing here is whether there was or was not an auction to bundle Half Life 2 with ATI or Nvidia....
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