ATI Technologies will cut the prices of its Radeon 8500, 7500 and 7000 graphics chips next week, hoping to more clearly differentiate the older products from its new RV250 chip, set to be launched on July 17. According to sources, the upcoming RV250 is an updated version of the Radeon 8500 chip. However, given that it integrates the TV-out decoding function, the chip is smaller in size, thus reducing the production costs of both chip and graphics card manufacturers. Other features like the four-pipeline architecture and AGP 4x support remain unchanged. ATI most likely is making the move to differentiate its product lines, avoiding the market overlap problem previously experienced by other chip companies. After the RV250 launch, a new round in the graphics chip battle may erupt. ATI plans to introduce its top-end R300 shortly and the AGP 8x-supporting RV280 chip in the fourth quarter. Its major rival Nvidia is scheduled to unveil its AGP 8x-based NV18 and NV28 chips in the second half of this year. ATI said that introducing AGP 8x-supporting chips earlier would be pointless. Judging from the roadmaps of other chipset designers, the AGP 8x standard is expected to gradually become more mature in the first half of 2003. Source: Digitimes