Sapphire kicks off ATI, Nvidia price war

NVIDIA ATTACKED ATI with a slightly crippled high end card but the Canadian firm seems to have some answers to that.

The Nvidia FX 5900XT is, so far, the best performer in the mainstream market that sweeps away Radeon 9600XT and the FX5700 Ultra has 9800SE to fight.

But ATI has set its prices even lower than Nvidia's magic $205 figure.

Sapphire is offering the highly popular AIW solution based on 9800SE card and it's retailing for only €190 Euros. See here, for example.

For this price you will buy a high performing card with AIW capabilities that is still cheaper then Nvidia's 5900XT.

The same company is also offering a 9800SE card for €175 including VAT, which is €30 less than Nvidia's equivalent.

Nvidia attacks ATI responds. That's how this game works but consumers will definitely benefit from this war in the middle market since you are getting real stuff for not so much money.

Sapphire has confirmed there are no Half Life 2 voucher with this cards and that the vouchers only comes with XT cards at least for now. Still, even without this valuable piece of paper it's a great bargain. µ