ATI RV610 and R630 to launch in April

DAAMIT is not that far away from launching its mainstream and entry level DirectX 10 products.

Nvidia will beat it with its G86 and G84 launch but we heard that AMD plans to introduce the mainstream R610 and entry level RV630 in April. This will roughly take place a month after the original R600 launch. Give or take a week or two, more likely give.

Those will be crippled versions of the original R600 design, but they will be good for Vista and DirectX 10 and that's what AMD desperately needs. Despite the April launch, mass availability is expected in May 2007. This is still not that bad as at least AMD will be there well ahead of the back to school period.

The R630 will bring the AMD's DirectX 10 to the sub $100 market and this is exactly what AMD sales need.

The good thing is that the ad-on market is set to grow in Q2 due to Vista. A lot of people will have to upgrade to run this eye candy. µ