HKEPC have recently discovered that AMD have planned a new strategy whereby they will allow different manufacturers to design their Radeon X1950XT "Special Edition" cards. These cards are expected to sell at a lower price point to the "official edition" variants made by AMD/ATI themselves to make them more appealing.

This action has been taken in Mid-Nov where AMD provided a design reference for manufacturers to build up their own special models. Some of these special editions have been sent to AMD for verification and hopefully they will be available in the market in Mid-Jan. While the official Radeon X1950XT 256MB has a price of $279, the special editions are probably lower than that. Yet its rival remains the same as GeForce 7950GT 512MB.

Full details here.

When you are looking for a high-end graphic card, says Radeon X1950XT for example, you may curious different brands have the same design of the model. They always look like the same, but definitely may not the same price. Indeed, most of the high-end models are manufactured by the same companies only, namely NVIDIA and AMD (formerly ATI). However, next time when you have a look to Radeon X1950XT, don't overlook the special editions, they may no longer the same. AMD has announced its plan to let different manufactures to design and manufacture its special Radeon X1950XT edition. It is expected these special edition may eventually has a lower cost than the official edition so as to enhancing the competitive efficiency.