ATI Technologies has recently unveiled plans fo a $100 rebate program for consumers who purchase its upcoming CrossFire line of graphics cards in pairs. Consumers who purchase an X8xx series card before September 29th can register their product and receive a coupon good for $100 off the purchase of a CrossFire series card, redeemable if the consumer purchases the second card and mails the coupon along with the UPC to the rebate center. ATI then promises to refund the buyer with a $100 check within eight weeks.
The promotion is undoubtedly setup to counter the recent release of NVIDIA"s 7800GTX, which, mostly in thanks to its 150% increase in rendering pipelines over previous cards, outpaces ATI"s X850XT PE graphics card in nearly all benchmark tests. While CrossFire lines of products including graphics cards and motherboards were initially promised by June, none have hit the market as of this time. This fact, unfortunately for ATI, has been worsened by the immediate availability of 7800GTX boards the same day as their unveiling. Hopefully for both ATI as well as consumers, CrossFire can still emerge as a strong competitor to NVIDIA"s SLI technology.