An ATI Technologies’ spokesman told X-bit labs Wednesday that the RADEON X800 SE graphics processor that in offered by Dell at the moment is a SKU generally intended for OEM market and is unlikely to emerge in retail.

“We have no plans to introduce the RADEON X800 SE to the channel – this is an OEM only part,” an ATI’s spokesman Chris Hook said.

Earlier today X-bit labs reported that Dell had started to offer the latest addition to ATI Technologies’ latest high-end product line – the RADEON X800 SE – in some of its systems intended for games and entertainment. It was assumed that eventually ATI RADEON X800 SE graphics cards will be sold in the retail market.

X800’s “Weakest Link” now Available

ATI RADEON X800 SE graphics cards is the third graphics product in ATI RADEON X800 lineup unveiled in early May. According to Dell, the graphics card has a 425MHz graphics processor, 128MB of DDR SDRAM memory with 256-bit bus width along with typical set of connectors, such as D-Sub, DVI-I and TV-Out.

So far Dell has been spotted offering only PCI Express x16 flavour of the RADEON X800 SE product.

Earlier this year unofficial sources claimed that the RADEON X800 SE graphics chip had 8 pixel pipelines. By contrast, ATI RADEON X800 PRO and ATI RADEON X800 XT graphics processors boast with 12 and 16 pixel pipelines respectively, delivering greater performance in the majority of cases. Dell did not disclose the number of rendering pipes for the RADEON X800 SE.

According to the previously released information, the RADEON X800 SE will cost about $299, complementing the existing offerings with recommended pricing of $399 and $499. Dell's customers will receive the RADEON X800 SE for $180 when upgrading to it from ATI RADEON X300 SE graphics card installed by default.

NVIDIA GeForce 6800 – Unrivalled?

ATI RADEON X800 SE promised to be more powerful compared to ATI RADEON 9800 XT in the majority of cases. In case the speed gap is enough substantial, when available in retail, the product might put quite some pressure on sales of NVIDIA’s GeForce 6800 graphics offering at the same price-point. However, in the light of the current information the RADEON X800 SE will compete with the GeForce 6800 only in the OEM market.