The recent launch of the NVIDIA 7800 GTX could signal the beginning of the fall in price of the 6800 series. However, this is usual stuff and always happens every time a company releases an updated product. The thing to note after the release of the 7800 series is that for the first time ever, a GFX card manufacturer ensured availability in stores before launch of the actual card. NVIDIA completely addled and mis-footed ATI with this move and forced it to match the move during the launch of its own line of cards.

However, there is a lot more beneath the surface than just marketing strategies. For the latest lines of graphics cards, NVIDIA and ATI have taken completely different approaches. While NVIDIA has stuck to its tried and tested method of evolving newer cards from older ones, ATI is continuing its tradition of going back to the drawing board before it starts a new series.

With that said, ATI has revamped its cards and specifications so many times that even its board partners are confused about what series features what, and when it’s expected to debut in the market.

According to reports, ATI isn’t bothered too much by the higher clocked GPU supplied by NVIDIA in the PlayStation 3 as its new architecture will easily compensate for it (they have separate engines to render pixel and vertex shader requirements), and it doesn’t seem like an unreasonable assumption as the more pipelined architecture should easily ensure much smoother, faster graphic rendering which should, in theory, give you better performance.

The difference in the GFX card market this time is that unlike the heydays of the 9800 series, NVIDIA has been ruling the roost for quite some time now and is still ahead, if you compare the fastest cards available from both stables today. While NVIDIA has got the 6800 and the 7800, the best ATI can do right now is the X800 or the X850, which are a generation behind in terms of development and just don’t cut it like NVIDIA does.

ATI’s launch cycle has gone out of sync with NVIDIA this time around. This means that we can hope to see an R520 somewhere around October that would put it smack in the middle of NVIDIA’s launch of the 7800, and the expected launch of an upgrade to the 6200-rumored to be the 6500. This could obviously work both ways: the fastest of ATI’s cards would be about at least a couple of months older than NVIDIA’s 7800, but the midrange cards from ATI would surely be faster than the 6200s and will beat the 6500 to the market. Considering the fact that entry/mid level cards are the main source of revenue for these companies, it appears that ATI has done some shrewd calculations in adjusting its launch dates.

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