ATI Technologies has officially lowered the pricing of the Radeon X1800 XL to $299, however, this is not enough for the company to fill the gap between $179 and $299 with a product supporting Shader Model 3.0. To introduce a product that would offer up-to-date functionality in the mentioned price-range, the company will release Radeon X1800 GTO product for $179 in late March, according to a media report.

ATI Radeon X1800 GTO will have 12 pixel processors and 8 vertex processors, according to a report at the HKEPC web-site that cites makers of graphics cards. Clock-speed and other details concerning board configuration are currently unknown, however, it is claimed that the product is to be released on the 28th of March and is likely to have recommended price of approximately $249.

The new Radeon X1800 GTO product will be based on the R520 graphics processor that powers the rest of the X1800-series products with cut-down specifications: 4 out of 16 pixel pipelines will be disabled.

The Radeon X1800 GTO will compete against Nvidia's GeForce 6800 GS as well as GeForce 7600-series graphics cards. After several months of existences, possibly in July or August, will be replaced by the Radeon X1700-series products, according to slides published by the web-site.

The pricing and launch dates information may be corrected as times go by. It is unclear whether it will be possible to unlock the disabled pixel processors and overclock the Radeon X1800 GTO, something that made the Radeon X800 GTO2 products very popular among the enthusiast community.

ATI Technologies did not comment on the news-story.

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