After NVIDIA increased the frequencies of its GeForce FX 5600 Ultra, ATI Technologies’ RADEON 9600 PRO solution on its default speeds appeared to be slower than the competing product in modern games. As a result, a number of graphics card manufactures now launch graphics cards with higher speeds compared to ATI’s recommendations in order to beat NVIDIA’s mainstream DirectX 9.0 offering.

As we know, core and memory speeds of the GeForce FX 5600 Ultra were boosted to 400/400MHz from 350/350MHz in mid-May (see this news-story). Although there are still no such graphics cards on the market, ATI’s AIB partners already worry about the competition and some of them are now starting to gain speeds of their RADEON 9600 PRO-based graphics cards.

SUMA recently released its PLATINUM RADEON 9600 PRO graphics card with 450/650MHz clock-speeds for core/memory. The graphics card is made fully according to reference design, but in addition SUMA equips its novelty with memory heat-sinks as well as Dual Cooling System for the VPU.

ATI’s Number One AIB partner Sapphire also recently rolled-out its RADEON 9600 ATLANTIS PRO FireBlade Edition that allows memory overclocking up to 660MHz.

Graphics cards with speeds over default 400/600MHz for VPU and DDR SDRAM should have more chances to successfully compete against the GeForce FX 5600 Ultra when it is released later this month. I have no idea if overclocked RADEON 9600 PRO graphics cards are faster or slower compared to the competing solution from NVIDIA, but I am sure that ATI and its AIBs should now move up the speeds of the RADEON 9600 PRO since the RADEON 9500 PRO, which should beat the GeForce FX 5600 Ultra for sure, will soon vanish into oblivion.