While hunting around on various websites today, doing the usual product searches, I came across quite a few interesting little bits of info that I wanted to share this afternoon.  First up, it would appear that I have found the first X800 PCI Express card available, from PowerColor.  Listed here on our shopping page, the card is going for $389 and slightly higher.  This is the first of the new 0.11 micron cards from ATI that I have seen for sale anywhere.  Unfortunately, I haven’t found any of the X800 XL cards anywhere yet.

Finding the X850 XT Platinum Edition was a bit of a surprise, as you can see on our shopping page here.  The prices are more than a bit inflated over the already high MSRP of $549, with the lowest price offered at $750!!!  If you want the fastest, then by all means, go ahead, but I’ll be keeping my American Express in my wallet on this one. 

If you want to look over towards the other side of the fence for gaming superiority, then SLI is what you are after.  The Asus A8N-SLI Deluxe motherboard is picking up in quantities quite well and the prices are coming down too.  If can be found at some stores for under $200 now.  I have heard that the Gigabyte motherboards are just now beginning to show up, but I haven’t seen them on the PriceGrabber pages quite yet.

If you plan on getting an SLI motherboard, then the SLI video cards are going to be on your list as well.  While 6600GT cards are plentiful from MSI, Gigabyte, XFX, Asus, PNY, eVGA and others, the 6800 line is still harder to find.  I was able to find the XFX line of 6800GT cards at a few stores for just under $500 and the US-made BFG Technologies cards were for sale for $500 as well.  These prices are still $100 over the MSRP on a 6800GT card, but the prices aren’t going to come down until we see some significant stock.  From what I was told at CES last week in Las Vegas, this may not happen until March.