ATI may beat nVidia by summer

Graphics card vendors race to build faster, better chips

Graphics card vendor, ATI may be able steal a march over arch-rival nVidia, and produce the leading high-end chip by the end of this summer.

ATI's R580+ uses the same 90 nanometre architecture as the current generation, but it will be modified to accommodate GDDR 4. According to ATI, the R520, Radeon 10K generation can also support GDDR4, but the company will have to tweak it to make it possible.

However, nVidia may have its G80 ready before ATI has tweaked the R580+, in which case the whole market will once again be wide open.

NVidia has not released details on the upcoming G80 but according to speculation from industry watchers, it will beat the current R580 and possibly even R580+'. However, ATI plans to fight the G80 with its upcoming R600.

Clock speeds for the new R580+ card, have yet to be released, and should be available within the next month or so.

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