AMD is set to introduce a new mid-range graphics card based on the 40nm 'Barts LE' core before the end of the week, according to a report on NordicHardware. The Radeon HD 6790 would directly compete with Nvidia's GeForce GTX 550 Ti, offering a more powerful alternative to Radeon HD 5770 at a lower price than Radeon HD 6850.

Spec-wise the Barts LE core is said to feature AMD's VLIW5 architecture and will get 800 stream processors arranged in 10 streaming multiprocessor units – which compares to 12 SM units and 960 stream processors in the Barts Pro GPU that powers the Radeon HD 6850. The card also sports 40 Texture Units, a core clock of 840 MHz, a 256-bit memory interface, 1GB of GDDR5 VRAM set to 4200 MHz, two 6-pin PCIe power connectors, and a TDP of 150W – which oddly enough is higher than the more powerful Radeon HD 6850's rating of 129W and close to the 6870's 151W.


AMD will reportedly launch the new card on March 31. Although there's still no word on pricing, if it is to compete with the Nvidia GeForce GTX 550 Ti we can expect AMD's latest mid-range offering to hover around the $150 mark.