According to information leaked by ATI and its partners, the new Radeon 9700 cards will guarantee that ATI will have the fastest chip in the market during the summer.
The fastest offering of the new product range will run at 315 MHz, a speed initially planned by nVidia for its Geforce 4 TI 4600 but later lowered to 300 MHz.
The official announcement for the new cards is expected to be made by ATI very soon.
The card will carry eight pipelines and the first mention of test results really seem impressive. ATI's new baby is expected to score 15,000 3DMarks, a few thousand better than nVidia's best offering (10,000-11,000).
The card is expected to be made commercially available in early September and that is where ATI will prove that they have really matured as a serious contender to nVidia's crown. If they manage to deliver their cards on time, a problem which has plagued them in the past, they will have certainly taken a step in the right direction.
