Hd5870 - $299

[RPGWiZaRD]

I think 299 is very low too. Maybe they want to grab a huge chunk of the market before Christmas, otherwise it would be foolish to not make some more money of it.

Well what if the 1200 SPs, slightly more ROPs & TMUs than 48xx rumored specs are correct? That would in practice translate to performance increase along the lines as I previously suggested. If so $299 makes perfectly sense. But what are the real specs, that's the question. With 1600 SPs like some people thinks (which fits within a "reasonable" die size still), then $299 is clearly too cheap. I'm strongly leaning towards 1200 SPs at this point.

However like you say if it comes close or matches GTX 295 in performance, $299 sounds like a too good deal, if that's the case maybe we see another price hike we saw last time to $350 and would still put a pressure on nvidia. :p TBH NVIDIA's been overpriced especially the GTX 285 and 295 cards while ATI's cards being so much more reasonable priced this last few months. Just compare HD 4890 @ $199~220 and 4870x2 @ $370 vs GTX 285 @ $330 or GTX 295 @ $499!