ATI yesterday effectively announced its R520 series of graphics chips, releasing the names of the upcoming products on the back of statement saying they are now in mass-production.

According to the graphics chip company, its foundry partner, TSMC, is "in volume production of multiple 90nm products for ATI". Among them are the Radeon X1800, X1600 and X1300.

Former Intel sales chief now TSMC corporate development chief Jason Chen said: "TSMC is currently processing thousands of 300mm wafers for ATI, with many more already delivered."

The result, said ATI, will be X1800, X1600 and X1300-based cards "arriving on store shelves" by the end of the month.

Why hasn't ATI formally launched the new chips? Our guess is that it's holding on to the announcement the better to spoil Nvidia's upcoming GeForce Go 7800GTX launch, which is expected to take place on 29 September.

That said, since ATI promised to ship the 90nm R520 - dubbed by our chums at Hexus.net "the most talked about piece of vapourware since 3DRealms announced Duke Nukem Forever" - some time ago, it probably wants to highlight the chips' availability as often as it can in case no one believes it first time... ®

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