ATI's launch: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

LAST WEEK wasn't the best week ATI ever had. In fact I have not seen a vendor take such a PR drubbing for a long time. Not every thing actually went badly for the firm, despite the fact it took some serious flack from many of the hardware sites. Let's hope the last thing it did, which lands in the column headed "good" is the start of a trend.

What's good? Let's just start out with the R520 launch. ATI repeatedly claimed availability on day one, and while many slapped it around because of this, I think that is unwarranted. It claims six cards - X1800XL/XT, X1300/Pro and X1600Pro/XT, the X1800XL, X1300Pro and X1300 were launched on the 5th of October, it will intro the X1800XT and X1600XT on the 5th of November, and the X1600Pro on the 30th of November.

Now, sit down for the next bit, it is about as close to unprecedented as you can get for a non-Nvidia product. The three that it said were available did go out of the door when it said. There are plenty of people telling me that it did, so I do believe it. I can only find two links here and here that have them, but in a day or three there will undoubtedly be many more.

Pricing is a little more worrisome. In the meat of the market, the mid-range, things are very competitive. ATI said the X850 Crossfire cards, which were still MIA in the wild, are in the thick of that, priced at $349. Well, they were $349 until they went up for sale. At $399.

Some people noticed this little repricing game but if it is a game ATI is playing rather than a mistake, it will have long term repercussions.

Then there's the blog by VoodooPC we told you about late last week. It seems that Voodoo still don't have cards, but it is now no longer a X1K launch partner, so I am not sure what to make of this. There's obviously been some conversations behind the scenes.

Then there's Crossfire. At Hardware Analysis there's some stinging comment.

Overall, my feeling is that the past few weeks will be a time to forget for ATI. There are hopeful signs, the first half of the 5xx series chips are on time, and ATI's own site has master cards up for sale. But let's end this on a positive note and say we trust things are looking up, because all of the groundwork is there. Keep it up ATI, let's turn this into a trend. µ