Last week we told you about how AMD was looking to put some pressure in the sub-$300 segment with new cutback Radeon HD 6900 cards as Nvidia readies the launch of its GTX 560 Ti - which is due today, so check back for our review! Well, now the company has made it official announcing a new 1GB variant of the Radeon HD 6950 priced at $259. This is basically a normal HD 6950 with half the memory and as a result the price and memory performance is lower.
Newegg already has listed three versions of the board for sale on its site, including a slightly overclocked model from XFX. So far we've seen no mention of a similarly cutback 1GB version of the Radeon HD 6970, but AMD did cut prices on the 2GB HD 6950 model, which will now sell from $269 to $289 depending on configuration. In addition, the previous-generation Radeon HD 6870 that launched with a recommended price tag of $239 is going down to $219.
If the GeForce GTX 560 Ti does enter the market at $250, we feel that AMD could be gaming the brackets successfully, putting themselves in a good position below and above Nvidia's upcoming mainstream offering.