A week after it was originally scheduled, ATI started to supply its RADEON 9700 PRO graphics cards to their customers. As far as we now know, these new graphics cards are now for sale in Japan and also can be bought from online stores in the USA. The BestBuy network will start selling the newcomers from the Canadian company on Monday, September the 2nd.

This and this Japanese sites mention that both JoyTech and Power Color started selling RADEON 9700 PRO devices. The retail price in Japan varies from $404 to $421 what is almost normal, keeping in mind that everything is a little bit overpriced in Japan. As for the USA based customers, according to a thread in Rage3D forums, a lot of those who had pre-ordered their new graphics cards, have now got their RADEON 9700 PRO. Although we have no information about Europe, I was told that the sales have already begun and the appropriate products will hit the shelves in retail stores by Monday.

As NVIDIA does not seem to be able to start mass-delivery of the NV30 before November, ATI now has about two month to fulfil the demand on high-end graphics cards for this Fall. Well, wish them luck.